


The Last of Us Part II: Cold Hunt

by notagamer



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Lesbians, Rating May Change, Tags May Change, Violence, Warnings May Change, let me know if i need to add any tags or CW
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:13:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29126286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notagamer/pseuds/notagamer
Summary: After a vengeful group of strangers comes through Jackson looking for Joel, Joel is forced to tell Ellie the truth about what happened at the hospital in Salt Lake City five years ago. Sick of Joel's insistence on protecting her, and wracked with guilt over what her survival means for the rest of the world's fight against the Infection, Ellie sets out to right Joel's wrongs.
Relationships: Abby & Nora (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Ellie & Jesse (The Last of Us), Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 35





	1. Future Days

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Restricted Work] by [notagamer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notagamer/pseuds/notagamer). Log in to view. 



> The fic is literally just the plot I would have gone with if Druckmann had knocked on my door and asked. He didn't, so here it is anyway. I hesitate to call it a fix-it because honestly I loved TLOU Part II so so so dearly. There are for sure some flaws with it and I'm hoping to touch up on those with this fic, but I think the story of Part II was remarkable. Anyways. Read on if desired. 
> 
> For the record, this fic is a rework of a previous fic I published under the same name a while back. I changed some things up and made a new fic that I'm more interested in writing. The first few chapters are mostly the same as the old fic, so if you feel any deja vu while reading, that would be why. Chapter 4 is where things really start to diverge from the old fic.
> 
> Anyways. Below is the copied a/n from the old fic.
> 
> If you read it, let me know your thoughts. My goal is to keep as in-character as possible. Some parts will pretty much be identical to scenes from the game (including this first chapter).
> 
> It's been a long time since I've written any sort of fiction, and this is my first time posting on AO3. There will be some fuck ups. I'm unlikely to go back and check it. If there's anything egregious, just let me know and I'll try to fix it.
> 
> I'll be adding tags as they pop up in the story but in case you want to know now, there will absolutely be Ellie/Dina, major character deaths, and, of course, spoilers for TLOU parts I and II.

Something felt off. It was a kind of ‘off’ she hadn’t experienced much in Jackson; it was the feeling that she was being watched, the kind of feeling that rose the hair on the back of her neck, that set her brain racing faster, that caused her to instinctively reach for her pistol, which, she was now realizing, was across the room from her. What did she have? The pencil in her hand was old and wooden, it would break in half before it could pierce skin. There were pens on her desk that would work better, but would she have time to reach for them? Her knife was buried at the bottom of her backpack, where she had tossed it earlier after returning home from patrol training—a waste of time, she thought, since she had more experience fighting Infected than did half of the people training her—but perhaps if she could find something to throw at her opponent, just to stun them for a moment, she might have time to grab it. What could she throw? Not her journal, which lay open in front of her; it was too light. Not the Walkman in her lap; frankly, she’d never be able to find another in as good of condition, and couldn’t risk breaking it. The coffee-stained mug she’d been using as a pen holder? Perfect, if she could reach it in time.

In an instant her adrenaline peaked. She felt eyes on the back of her head, and knew her time was limited. She made her choice: Throw the mug, grab the knife, try to get to her pistol if she could. Now she just had to execute her plan. As she began to rise from her chair, she felt a kick to its legs, and a hand on her shoulder.  _ Too late _ , she thought, cursing Jackson for allowing her to let her guard down. She began to reassess her options...and then she smelled the all-too familiar combination of coffee, dirt, and gunpowder. Out of her corner of her eye, she glimpsed his beard, fuller now than it had been last year, streaked with more gray.

“Jesus,” she said, breathless, “you almost gave me a heart attack.”

Joel looked grim, as he usually did lately. Awkward, in his clean button-down, neatly tucked in to belted jeans. His dark, graying hair was nicely combed. “I tried knockin’, but…”

Ellie rose from her desk, removing her headphones. Her heart still racing, she made a mental note to keep the volume down. No one should be able to sneak up on her, even in Jackson, even if it’s Joel. “Hey.”

“Hey.” 

She didn’t really know what to say to him. She hoped he’d leave soon. “What’s up, Joel?”

He stared at the ground, thumbs hooked into his belt loops. Joel looked too big for the room. He did not look like a man who belonged on the clean hardwood flooring, wearing polished boots. Perhaps he felt this, and it was why he stood so stiffly. “Just checkin’ in. Folks are, y’know, talkin’ ‘bout you and...how impressed they are with you, and how well you’re helpin’ out.” 

“That’s good,” Ellie said. Why was he  _ here _ ? She was busy—okay, she had been journaling, but she hadn’t been able to all day before she got home, and she had a lot on her mind. 

“Yeah.” Maybe if she didn’t make eye contact, he’d realize that she wanted him to leave without her having to say it. 

“Tommy and I went out ridin’ the other day, and he uh, he told me a joke and I thought about you, so…” Joel was rambling. Did he really come here to talk to her this late just for a social call? She knew they hadn’t spent much time together lately, but it wasn’t exactly unintentional on her end. She had other things to do. She had patrol training, friends, Cat, riding lessons. And Joel always made these conversations so awkward—not that Ellie helped much with that aspect. Not that she wanted to. “Shoot,” Joel mumbled. “I forgot, uh...somethin’ ‘bout a clock, how do you—”

Ellie interrupted. “Joel, it’s uh, it’s pretty late, and I gotta get up in a few hours.” 

Joel coughed, noting her almost polite way of kicking him out. “Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, and I’m gonna get out of your hair, I just uh…” He backed towards the door. “I wanna show you something. Just gimme one second.” He stepped out of the door, still facing Ellie, into the darkness outside.

It had been more than a second. Ellie thought about telling him that, but decided they were not in a moment for sarcasm. She couldn’t really remember the last time they had been. Things had been weird between them since they got back to Jackson, and she was struggling to get past it. 

Emerging from the darkness, Joel stepped back into the room, holding a finely polished guitar at the neck. 

“What’s this?” Ellie asked. It had been a while since she’d seen him play guitar, and she was certain she’d never seen this one before. It was deep brown, lighter in the center, with a silver marking Ellie couldn’t quite make out towards the top of its neck. It was beautiful, really. 

Joel chuckled. “Some folks call this thing here a gee-tar.” He spun it slowly in his hands, letting Ellie see it in full view. It reflected the light from the lamp on her desk, and she was sure that in brighter light, she would just barely be able to see her own reflection in the finished wood. 

“Funny.” 

He nodded. And then he stood, stiffly, still holding the guitar, with words stuck in his throat. Ellie knew to give him a minute. If she was quiet for long enough, he would convince himself to say what he needed to. Finally he did, quietly, tenderly, but Ellie heard him. “You wanna hear something?”

She remembered the last time he’d played for her. It had been months. He was always a private person, and she figured that performing for people was a bit too personal for him to make a habit of it. 

Joel sat down on the box behind him, where Ellie stored her clothes. He grunted as he lowered himself, and Ellie wanted to crack a joke about him being old. She decided not to. 

“Promise me that you won’t laugh,” he said as he settled in. 

“I won’t laugh,” Ellie said. Joel gave her a stern look. “I won’t.”

Joel sighed. “Trustin’ you.” He closed his eyes, probably convincing himself to go ahead and play. And he did, strumming a slow tune that Ellie vaguely recognized from one of the records Joel had played for her before. It was an old song, she knew, from long before the outbreak. Joel played, quickly gaining his confidence, and Ellie found herself swaying to the music, remembering all at once how much she loved to hear music played right in front of her. She felt each note hitting her skin like a light rain, and she noted each time she heard Joel’s callused fingers scraping the guitar strings when he changed his fingering. She was surprised when he began to sing, quietly, in his deep, rasping voice. 

_ If I ever were to lose you _

_ I'd surely lose myself _

_ Everything I have found here _

_ I've not found by myself _

_ Try and sometimes you'll succeed _

_ To make this man of me _

_ All of my stolen missing parts _

_ I've no need for anymore _

_ ‘Cause I believe _

_ And I believe 'cause I can see _

_ Our future days _

_ Days of you and me _

  
  


It was, of course, exactly what she needed him to say to her. It was exactly what he needed to tell her, to remind her how much she cared about him, and how she liked how much he cared for her. Ellie was disappointed when he stopped playing. She knew there were more verses, but she figured he already felt a bit exposed. That was alright with her. 

For a moment they sat in silence across from each other, letting Joel’s music settle in. It wasn’t the awkward silence that had permeated their conversations as of late. It was much calmer, and Ellie could tell that Joel didn’t mind it either. 

Finally, she closed the silence. “Well…” Ellie struggled to find the words. “That didn’t suck.”

Joel laughed, a more sincere laugh than she had heard from him in a while. “I’ll take what I can get.” He rose from his seat, groaning as he did. He held the guitar, twisting it around again in his hands, the light glinting off its surface. He took a step towards Ellie and held out the guitar. “She’s yours.”

Ellie put her hands up defensively. “No,” she said, “no, no, no, I don’t know the first thing about this.”

Joel placed the guitar in her hands. “I promised I’d teach you how to play.” 

And he had. That was ages ago, before they had settled down here in Jackson, before they had even crossed the Mississippi on the way out here. “You did,” Ellie conceded. She took the guitar, holding it gently as though she might break it. It was lighter than she thought it was, and she could finally make out the marking glinting on its neck—a moth, finely painted in silver. 

Joel took a step back, distancing himself from the guitar as if Ellie was going to try to give it back to him. Right then, Ellie knew—and she knew that Joel knew—that they were okay again. They had to be. “So what do you say?” Joel said, continuing to back towards the door. “Tomorrow night, first lesson?”

Ellie didn’t even remember if she had plans. At the moment she wasn’t concerned. “Yeah.” She smiled at him, faintly, but sincerely. 

“Okay.” Joel was at the door now, and suddenly, Ellie no longer wanted him to leave. “Okay. 

Just as his foot crossed the door frame back into the darkness, Ellie spoke. “Did you, uh…Did you remember the joke?”

Now Joel smiled. Ellie could barely see it, since his face was in shadow, but she could tell from his eyes. “What is the downside to eating a clock?”

Ellie could think of a million. Splinters, for one. Glass shards, for two. But she didn’t want to give a snarky answer. She shrugged. 

“It’s time consuming.” Joel’s hand rested on the door jamb, and though Ellie wanted him to stay, she had nothing else to say to keep him there. So she laughed.

“That’s so dumb.” She twisted side to side in her chair. The guitar— _ her _ guitar—still sat in her lap, her hands clasping it now like it was all she had. 

“Yeah.” They were silent again for a moment. For the first time all night, and for the first time in months, for that matter, their eyes met, and they shared just a second of understanding. Ellie knew that Joel loved her, and she also knew—for better or for worse, and whether she wanted to or not—she loved him too. She had to. And she knew, just like he did, that he was always going to look out for her, whenever and however he could. They needed each other. And for the first time in a long time, Ellie felt like that was okay. 

Joel finally took the last step out of the door, shielded now, again, by the night’s darkness. “G’night, kiddo,” he said, shutting the door as he took a step back on the ground outside, and finally, just as the door closed, turned around to face the night.

Ellie faced the door for another moment, holding her guitar, wishing that it were tomorrow already so she could start to play. She felt excited like she hadn’t felt in ages—not as excited as before Jackson, but maybe a better sort of excitement. Excitement without chaos. 

She laughed, to no one. “Time consuming,” she muttered, only a little upset that she hadn’t thought of that. She shook her head, gently set the guitar against the wall beside her, and returned to her journal. 


	2. End of the Line

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is also identical to the first work.

It was that night with Joel that Ellie dreamed of now, years later. She vividly remembered how the guitar held felt in her hands that first time she held it, so light but so strong. She remembered how Joel’s voice cracked as he sang, the look on his face as he held the guitar out to her: Hopeful, humble, maybe a little drunk. He offered it like an olive branch, except it definitely wasn’t made of olive wood. _Damn, what_ is _it made of?_ Ellie wondered. Sprucewood? Mahogany? She didn’t know much about wood. Joel would know. Maybe she’d ask him later. 

Ellie woke with a start, and Joel’s melody stuck in her head. Someone was knocking on her door, hard. What time was it? She had no idea. Her thoughts were jumbled, recovering from her dream, remembering the night she’d had before, and nursing a light hangover. Slowly, she adjusted to the morning. Was it morning still? Had she slept in _that_ late? She couldn’t have, she had patrol in the morning. 

_Ah, shit. Fuck._

She jolted out of bed, making her way, groggily, to the door. She opened the door to see, unsurprisingly, Jesse leaning against the frame, grinning. “Hey,” she said, her voice raspy with sleep. 

“Mornin’!” Jesse said cheerfully, and louder than Ellie would have liked. He looked perfectly chipper, his face neatly shaven, his clothes clean, his hair recently combed. His appearance clashed with Ellie, whose hair was rumpled from sleep, and who was wearing the crumpled jeans and tank top she fell asleep in. 

Ellie squinted and tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes. “Sorry, I totally overslept. Just gimme a minute and I’ll get dressed.” 

“Heard you had quite the night after I left,” Jesse said, smirking as he often did. 

Ellie’s eyes went wide. _Fuck!_ “I—” she started, then realized she had no idea what to say. “She kissed me. It was just Dina being Dina. She didn’t mean anything by it.” It was true, Ellie was sure. Dina just _does_ shit like that. It didn’t mean anything. There was no way it meant anything. 

Now Jesse’s eyes widened, the smirk dropping off his face. “I was talking about your fight with Seth. Wait, you kissed Dina?” His tone was severe, his eyebrows furrowed. 

_Fuck!_ “Oh.” _Fuck fuck fuck!_ “I thought that’s—”

“We’re broken up for _one week_ and you’re trying to make moves on _my_ girl?”

“No, I—” What was she supposed to say? She hadn’t been trying to make moves on Dina at all. Well, not last night. It was Dina who started it. Sure, okay, Ellie had done nothing to try and stop it, but… “She was probably just trying to make you jealous. I would never...fuck, this is awkward.” Her voice dropped. She met Jesse’s eyes, which bore into hers with severity. She tried not to look away, hoping that he could just read her eyes, see her face—laden with discomfort—he would know that she was telling the truth. His face was serious, making Ellie want to disappear so much that she thought about shutting the door on him, until the corner of his mouth twitched, and his face broke into a smirk once again. 

“I’m messing with you man. I don’t care,” he said cooly, and she believed it. “Get dressed.”

Ellie thought she could hit him, hard, but figured it wouldn’t be in her best interest. He was bigger, he was her boss, and he had the moral high ground here. Afterall, Ellie _had_ kissed Dina. No, Dina kissed Ellie. Was the distinction important? Did it matter, if Ellie didn’t stop it? _Yes_ , Ellie decided. _Dina_ kissed _her_. 

“Ugh, you’re the worst.” Ellie was relieved, but annoyed. Shaking her head, she moved to shut the door, but Jesse pushed it back open just before she was able to close it.

His voice shifted. “It’s kinda fucked up that you did that,” he said. Ellie wasn’t sure if he was serious or not, but now she didn’t even care. She shut the door, Jesse on the other side, so she could get dressed. Not that she cared, really, what he saw or didn’t, but she didn’t want to look at him for the moment. 

She crossed the room and grabbed the sweatshirt that was draped on her desk chair, bringing it up to her face for a sniff. A little rank, but it would be fine. It was just patrol, and it was one of her warmer shirts. Plus, it was cleaner than most of her other clothes. She pulled it over her head, and over it she pulled on her jacket, which was still a little damp from last night’s snow. 

“Hey, is Joel up?” she asked through the door. She knew he was supposed to be on patrol today, and hoped she’d see him before they headed out. The way they left things last night was weird, and she wanted to talk with him.

“Don’t think so. Maria told him to stay in this morning, after what happened last night.” So she wouldn’t be seeing him this morning. Maybe she’d stop by tonight. “Tommy took the patrol alone. Damn, can’t imagine he got much sleep last night,” Jesse continued. “Definitely not as much as you.”

“Shut up, I was just about to get up,” Ellie said, which was a lie. She could have slept forever. She grabbed her pistol off the desk, checking the magazine for bullets, and placed it in her backpack. As an afterthought, she tossed in her journal, and slid the straps of her backpack over her shoulders as she walked back towards the door, pulled out the knife that was stuck in the end table, and opened the door once again, following Jesse as she stepped off the porch, shutting her door behind her, and headed towards the stables.

As they walked, Jesse chattered, as he usually did. It was rare that Ellie saw him with his mouth closed. He always seemed to have some snarky comment to make or someone to tease. Not that Ellie didn’t, but she kept it to herself sometimes at least. Not Jesse. If he had half a thought, it seemed, he had to speak it. Maybe it came from growing up knowing he was attractive. That confidence had carried him to where he was now: Handsome, revered by the town, adored by all for the adorable jackass he was. Ellie wasn’t _jealous_ , but she was maybe a bit resentful. Only a bit. Jesse never had to wonder if he was saying the right thing, or if he was doing things wrong, or if people liked him rather than just tolerating him. If someone kissed him, he knew it was because they liked him, not because they were trying to make someone else jealous. 

“Heads up,” Jesse said, “you’re the talk of the town this morning.”

Ellie didn’t like this. “Ugh, what?”

Jesse laughed. “Let me see if I’ve got this right: You kissed Dina—”

“She kissed me,” Ellie interjected. It mattered. 

He continued as though he hadn’t heard. “Which triggered Seth to call you a—” He almost said it. Ellie wished he had; at least then she’d have been able to give him shit for it. But he stopped himself. “Not-so-nice word,” he filled in.

Ellie nodded. “Right.”

“Then Joel decked him?”

“More of a push.” Ellie wondered where he was getting his intel. Whoever told him last night’s events seemed to dramatize. 

Jesse shook his head. “And then you got mad at Joel. That part confused me.”

Ellie shrugged. She didn’t know how to explain what had happened with Joel, and she didn’t want to. Jesse was a friend, but he wouldn’t understand. “It was a strange night, man.”

“Sounds exciting.” They were nearing the stables now, but Ellie wanted to clear the air before Jesse got into his authority mode.

“Hey so…” she started, lightly placing her hand on his arm to stop him. “We’re okay, right?”

Jesse smiled. “What, you and me? We’re cool,” he said. “Dina and I are done.” _Yeah, for now_ , Ellie thought. They’d broken up before, and it never lasted long. They could both insist that it was for real this time, but she’d believe it when she saw it. For now, she wasn’t going to hold her breath.

“I know, I just didn’t want you to think—”

Jesse grabbed her arm, making her turn to face him. “Ellie, we’re cool,” he insisted. “I promise.

She was relieved. She didn’t know how she’d stand it if Jesse was mad at her. He was her friend, and she relied on that. Plus, he was in charge of patrol assignments, and she didn’t want to be stuck with the worst assignments just because Dina was a flirty drunk. “Thanks,” Ellie said. 

Over Jesse’s shoulder, she saw Maria’s dog, Texas, walking towards them, meaning Maria couldn’t be far behind. As the old dog approached, she reached down to pet him behind the ears, like she knew he preferred. She’d always wanted a dog, but knew she didn’t have the patience needed to care for one. As it was, she was fine to love on Texas when he came around. His fur was rougher and grayer now than it was when she first met him, close to five years ago, now, when she and Joel first settled down in Jackson. His steps were slower and a bit more labored, but he still panted like crazy when he got scratched behind the ears, and happily rolled over like a puppy when he sensed belly rubs were a possibility. 

“Jesse! Ellie!” Ellie heard Maria shout. Looking up from Texas, who was not pleased to lose her attention, Ellie saw Maria standing a few feet from Jesse. Not one for small talk, Maria got straight to the point. “When you go out, I want you to take over for Tommy,” she said, pointing at Jesse. “Up at the northwest lookout. Watch yourself. Too many sightings of Infected lately. Take Joel”

“Of course.” Jesse nodded. “I thought Joel was sitting out today.”

Maria rolled her eyes. “You think he’d listen to me?” Fair point. Joel was not one to rest on the sidelines.

“I was gonna check out the creek trails. I’ll need someone else to cover it,” said Jesse. 

Maria’s attention now turned to Ellie, who reluctantly stopped petting Texas and stood to face Maria. She didn’t like standing in this triangle with Maria and Jesse; they were both a good bit taller than her, and made her feel small. Not to mention that they both held authority over her. Jesse she didn’t mind so much, especially now that she could be sure that they were still cool. If Dina kissing her didn’t piss him off, Ellie was sure there wasn’t much she could do to get on his bad side. Maria, on the other hand, still frightened her at times. She had certainly warmed some since Ellie and Joel had come to Jackson, but it was hard for Ellie to forget the first time they met, when Maria had held a gun to her face. A misunderstanding, sure, but terrifying nonetheless. Maria was a benevolent leader of their settlement, and Ellie knew she meant well, but there was no chance of Ellie not harboring some form of fear towards her any time soon. 

“Ellie, you know the creek trails?” Maria asked. Ellie did not know the creek trails. Despite running patrol for three years now, she had still only run about half of the trails. She assumed Joel had some hand in that. He trusted Ellie enough to run patrol, but she figured he put some pressure on Jesse to make sure she was given the safer assignments. It annoyed her, but she got it. He wasn’t going to risk her getting hurt. It bothered her that he didn’t seem to think she could handle herself—which she absolutely could—but she didn’t think it was worth fighting about, at least not right now.

She shrugged. “Not really.”

“Dina’s done it a bunch,” Jesse said, just slightly raising an eyebrow as he looked at Ellie. “I’ll have the two of them take care of it.”

If Maria wasn’t there, Ellie would have kicked him. _What a dick._ But since Maria was there, she restrained herself. If she kicked him in front of Maria, then Maria would know something was up. And Maria would tell Tommy, and Tommy would tell Joel, and Joel would try to make Ellie talk about it. So instead, Ellie stared daggers at Jesse, hoping he would feel it and possibly burst into flames. 

Maria clapped her hands together in resolve. “That solves that,” she said, and Jesse nodded and continued towards the stables. Before Ellie could follow him, Maria motioned for Ellie to stay put. “Ellie, can I talk to you for a sec?”

Ellie didn’t like this. “Sup?”

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you and Joel—”

 _Annoying!_ Maria must have seen the scene Ellie and Joel caused at the bar last night. Ellie knew she meant well, but come on, did Maria really think it was her business? Of course she did. Maria saw everything that happened in Jackson as being her business. She was a control freak—understandably, maybe, but frustratingly as well. 

Maria must have seen Ellie rolling her eyes. “Look, the guy really cares about you. I’m sure he didn’t mean to—”

“We’re fine,” Ellie said, cutting Maria off. 

Maria got the hint. She knew that Ellie did not like people to be in her business. “Yeah? Okay.” Ellie knew that Maria had more to say, but thankfully, it seemed she was going to let it go. “Sorry to pry.”

 _You still pried, though_ , Ellie thought. But she knew better than to sass Maria. She’d complain to Joel or Tommy about it later. Before Maria could continue, Ellie nodded and, giving a final pat to Texas, continued towards the stables, catching up with Jesse who had been waiting for her just beyond Maria’s line of sight. 

Jesse glanced at Ellie, asking her with his eyes to share when Maria had asked about, but Ellie was reluctant to share. Jesse was already going to do everything he could to give Ellie shit about last night, she didn’t want to feed the fire.

Just before they reached the stables, as Jesse was already shouting out assignments for those who could hear, Ellie glimpsed Dina. She was throwing snowballs at the younger stableboys, laughing jovially each time one of her throws hit, expertly dodging the snowballs they hurled back at her. From the snowflakes caught in her hair and stuck to her jacket, Ellie could tell the kids had managed to land a few. Ellie wondered how long they’d been out there. Dina’s nose was tipped with red from the cold, and the ankles of her jeans looked soaked. Ellie tried very, very hard not to stare. It did not work. 

“Will you get your girlfriend to the stables, please?” Jesse said, startling Ellie, who had forgotten he existed. She didn’t like the comment. Dina was not her girlfriend. They had kissed, once, while Dina was drunk. Dina kissed _her_ while drunk. But it didn’t mean anything. It was one kiss. 

Okay, sure, maybe it was a few separate kisses. Maybe there was a little tongue. Maybe Ellie slid her arms around Dina’s waist and pulled her just a bit closer. And maybe--a big maybe--maybe the look Dina gave her, and the way her dark brown eyes drifted down to Ellie’s lips just before she leaned in, _maybe_ it was the most beautiful sight Ellie had ever seen. 

But it didn’t mean anything! Dina was just...being Dina. She was just... _fuck._

“Dina! Can I talk to you?” Ellie shouted. 

Dina looked over her shoulder and dropped the snowball she had been shaping. “All right, guys, tapping out.” The kids shouted their dismay, but quickly turned on each other and continued their game. Dina skipped to where Ellie stood, on the other side of the gate, and offered a friendly smile. “Hey!”

Ellie wasn’t sure if she wanted to talk to Dina or not. She was going to have to, since Jesse had assigned them both to the creek trails, but she didn’t think she was ready. Not yet. She needed just a day to process things, compartmentalize, and move on. Right now, though, it was still the first thing on her mind. The only thing on her mind.

She took a deep breath. “Hey, um…” _Fuck_. “I just--I just wanted to say, sorry for running off last night.” 

Dina shook her head. “No, I totally get it. I just--I felt bad.”

Bad? Why did she feel bad? Was it that bad of a kiss? Did she regret it that much? “Why?” Ellie asked, hoping she didn’t sound insecure when she said it. And she wasn’t insecure. She was just curious, that’s all. Sure.

Dina rubbed the back of her neck, knocking some of the snow out of her hair. The remaining snow flakes glinted in the sunlight, starkly contrasting her dark hair, pulled up in a hasty messy bun, a few loose strands stuck to her neck from the melted snow. Closer up, Ellie could see the tips of her ears were red from the cold as well. She looked so-- _fuck!_

“Well, ‘cause I started the whole thing. I just, I shouldn’t have kissed you in front of all those people—”

So she regretted it. At least Ellie knew. “It’s fine.”

“I just didn’t want you to think—”

“No, it’s fine, I’m not reading into it or anything.” And she wasn’t. She totally wasn’t.

Dina sighed. “You know what I love about you?” _No_ , Ellie thought, _but God, I’d like to_. “How you let me finish my sentences.”

A slight let down. “All right,” Ellie said. “Well, we should probably get going.” Before she could turn to leave, she was hit by a snowball, directly to the side of her head. Her head was already ringing enough from her mild hangover. “What the fuck, I’m not even playing!” she shouted to the kids, none of whom seemed willing to own up to throwing the snowball. She brushed the snow off her jacket, while the kids hurled insults and called her a chicken. She rolled her eyes. “I hate those kids so much,” she muttered.

Dina gave Ellie a very serious sideways look. With an eyebrow raised and a straight face, she asked, “You wanna fuck ‘em up?”

Ellie looked around, checking to see whether Jesse or Maria was in sight. Clear. “Yeah, I do.” She hopped the fence, throwing her legs over and landing in fluid motion. Quickly scooping a clump of snow and packing it tightly, she shouted, “You asked for it, you little shits!” before launching her snowball at the slowest kid in the yard. It hit dead on.

A few snowballs whizzed past her, and she rushed to duck behind the wooden wall of the playset in the yard. For a while she robotically scooped, packed, and hurled snow without putting much thought into aiming, just to send a message. She saw a few of them hit, mostly legs, and she kept lobbing. She heard Dina giggling nearby, and couldn’t help but steal a glance. Now Dina was covered in snow, not even trying to hide from the kids. Her dark hair was speckled with snowflakes, her clothes wet where the snow melted, her olive skin flushed pink. She was getting pelted with snow, smiling hugely, throwing loose handfuls of snow at the kids. Ellie thought it was nice that Dina was going easy on the kids, but couldn’t join her. The kids were menaces, and they had to be shown. 

But Dina looked so happy, Ellie couldn’t help but smile too. And then she took a snowball straight to the face. She turned, made eye contact with the kid who threw it, who stood frozen, eyes wide. And then ran. 

Ellie chased. As she ran after him--the ugly blonde kid whose family lived right across from Joel, with the underbite--she robotically scooped, packed, and hurled her snowballs at him. Now that she was trying, every single throw hit. The other kids now focused their attention to Ellie, but she dodged just about everything they threw her way. With a glance over her shoulder, she saw that Dina was now throwing well-shaped snowballs right at the kids, providing Ellie some cover as she ran after Underbite. The kid rolled under the playset for cover, but Ellie would not be bested. She dropped to the ground, immediately feeling the cold snow melt into her clothes, not caring for the moment the discomfort it would cause her later. She crawled after Underbite, underneath the playset, which was much too small for her. Underbite clambered out on the other side, and tripped as he attempted to get back on his feet.

Ellie knew she had him. By the time she got out from under the playset, Underbite was still on the ground, his shoes refusing to find grip on the snow and causing him to continue to fall to the ground. Ellie rose to her feet, towering over the small boy, tightly-packed snowball in hand. He rolled over, eyes wide, knowing he would soon meet his doom. 

As he tried to back up, crab-walking away from her, Underbite found himself backed against the fence. Ellie had him cornered. She slowly closed the distance between them, relishing in the fear in his eyes. Triumphant and proud, Ellie rose her snowball, feigning a hard overhand throw. Underbite cringed. His eyes closed, Ellie inched closer to him, crouching down so she could be at eye level with him. Slowly, he opened his eyes, meeting Ellie’s, pleading. 

Ellie would show no mercy. As Underbite cowered, she smashed her snowball into his face, to the sweet sound of his whimpers, taunting hollors from the other kids, and Dina’s uproarious laughter. “Eat that, shrimp.”

The other kids were floored. As they laughed, she locked eyes with Dina, who, smiling, cocked her head towards the stables, indicating it was time to go. “Okay, we’ve actually got work to do,” Dina told the kids, who collectively booed. Dina made a break towards the gate, and the kids rushed to block her path. She faked a move to the right, pushing past a few of the kids, but they just kept coming. Still laughing, she called for help.

Ellie dutifully answered the call, and lifted the kids, one by one, off the ground and out of Dina’s way. Slowly, they forged a path through the kids, and made it to the gate. Dina left the yard, shutting the gate behind her quickly as though she was trying to keep a herd of sheep from leaving the barn. Ellie hopped over the fence as she had before, landing smoothly beside Dina, who pretended to look impressed.

“You really stuck it to that kid back there,” Dina teased. 

Ellie wasn’t embarrassed in the slightest. “He deserved it.”

“Oh I agree,” Dina said. “You think his parents love him?”

“With that ugly face he’s got? Doubt it.” Ellie knew the kid’s parents were decent people. They sometimes brought Joel their leftovers from family meals, and Joel was known to share a beer with the father from time to time. That didn’t change the fact that the kid was a fucker.

“So, Jesse wants us to check out the creek trails. Tommy was out late last night, so Jesse and Joel are going up to the northwest lookout instead.”

Dina smiled. “That’s nice he assigned us together.” Was it? “You’re gonna like this route.” Was she?

Finally, Ellie and Dina entered the stables, where everyone else already seemed to be gathered. The stablekeeper went to grab horses for Ellie and Dina, and Jesse strode over, a mischievous glint to his eye. “Look who decided to join us,” he said, voice booming. Ellie ignored him, looking about the stable for Joel. He was already on horseback, bag fully packed. So she wasn’t going to get the chance to talk to him this morning afterall. She nodded a greeting to him, and he offered a wave and a slight smile. 

The stablekeeper handed over the reigns to Ellie’s favorite horse, Shimmer, the one who seemed to poop the least while they were out. Jesse, now fully in authority mode, began his prep speech, which didn’t seem to change much day-to-day. Probably just another excuse to hear himself talk. 

“Settle down, children,” he said to the stable full of adults, most of whom hadn’t said a word since Ellie and Dina had entered. “All right, you all know the drill. Run your routes, fill your logbooks, clear any Infected you see. You see anything you can’t handle,” he said slowly, making sure to make eye contact with each patroller as he looked about the stable, “you come back.” Finally, his eyes met Ellie, who flipped him the middle finger low enough that most others probably didn’t see it. “All right, get going.”

With that, he pushed the stable doors open, letting those already on their horses out first before he led his own horse out, hopping on its back once they were outside. Ellie led her horse out, keeping pace with Dina, who had been given a chronic pooper. Both of them grabbed a shotgun beside the door as they left, checked it for bullets, and slung the gun over their shoulder. Almost in sync, the girls mounted their horses, trotting off down the trail leading away from Jackson. They caught up with Jesse, who had caught up with Joel, and rode beside each other up the trail. Joel was humming under his breath, probably not thinking the others could hear him. Ellie recognized the tune--an old country song Joel used to play sometimes. In her head, she filled in the words. 

_Well it's all right, even if you're old and grey_

_Well it's all right, you still got something to say_

_Well it's all right, remember to live and let live_

_Well it's all right, the best you can do is forgive_

_Well it's all right, riding around in the breeze_

_Well it's all right, if you live the life you please_

_Well it's all right, even if the sun don't shine_

_Well it's all right, we're going to the end of the line_

It was an interesting song for Joel to be thinking of now, she thought. Maybe he just had it stuck in his head, or maybe he found some connection to the patrol. Either way, Ellie knew she’d be humming it later on. 

They reached the fork in the path, at the edge of the woods, where their routes parted ways--Jesse and Joel heading uphill, towards the lookout, and Ellie and Dina heading downhill, towards the creek. 

“Godspeed,” Jesse said to the girls. Ellie chuckled. With that, they nodded their goodbyes, heading in opposite directions into the forest, as it started to snow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fucking hated the scene at the bar with Seth, so I chopped it. I thought it was weird and unlike any kid I've ever known for them to full-on tackle Dina at the end of the snowball fight, so I changed it to a more gentle harassment. I like dogs, so I made up a character for the dog Ellie pets for two seconds in-game. I decided it's more likely for Tommy to go on patrol alone than for Jesse to go on patrol alone to look for Tommy and Joel, so that's what I did.
> 
> I had End of the Line stuck in my head, and I thought it was a song Joel would like, so I shoehorned it in. Sue me.
> 
> Just as before, let me know what works and what doesn't. I'm not a writer, I'm not editing, really, and I'm a dipshit.


	3. Creek Trails

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a couple of small, teeny-tiny changes from the first work, but nothing that really changes the chapter.

They were mostly quiet as they rode through the woods. The chittering wildlife and the rushing of the creek meant it was difficult to hear each other anyway, especially since Dina rode a ways ahead of Ellie to guide her. Every so often, Dina would shout to let Ellie know of a downed tree to look out for on the path, or a sharp turn ahead, or an anecdote relative to a site they were passing. Ellie would occasionally let Dina know that Dina’s horse was shitting. 

Dina’s hair, wrapped in its messy bun, bounced as her horse trotted. When Dina turned her face to speak to Ellie, Ellie noticed that most of her face was now pink. The lightly falling snow left most of Dina dusted white, and she had stopped trying to brush it off over a mile ago. It was no use. The snow kept coming. 

Every ten minutes or so, Dina would roll her shoulders and stretch her neck to either side. Even with her feet in the saddle straps, her leg shook with energy. Usually the left one, but sometimes she’d switch to the right. Ellie absolutely noticed these things coincidentally, and not because she was relishing in the opportunity to stare at Dina without being noticed. 

After a while, they came to the outskirts of the remnants of what was once a town. Dina hopped off her horse, keeping a loose hold on its reins, and Ellie followed suit. Ellie followed Dina, who walked with a slight skip to her step, towards a mostly intact building made of concrete. They tied up the horses, both of whom promptly pooped on the ground. Ellie stepped around to follow Dina into the building.

“Hey,” Dina said, “wanna see something spectacular?”

“You’re gonna point at your face, aren’t you?” 

Dina laughed. “Nothing is  _ that  _ spectacular.” Ellie didn’t disagree. “Come on, stupid.”

Ellie followed Dina through some broken walls and crooked doors, out a door at the back of the building, which Ellie now learned was built on the edge of a slight cliff. She didn’t realize how high up they were; she often forgot that Jackson was surrounded by mountains, until she was already thousands of feet above sea level. Dina stood by a railing built into the porch attached to the building, overlooking the mountainscape. 

It was beautiful. The mountains were turning whiter and whiter with the snow, and hundreds of pine trees poked out from the white, the deep green contrasting starkly. The mountains stretched far into the distance, farther than Ellie could see, and just seemed to get taller as they went. The sky was a crisp blue, the wispy white clouds mostly hidden behind the peaks. Ellie could see the creek they were following, twisting and winding around the mountains. The sun peaked out from behind the snow-capped mountains, still not having reached its highest point in the sky for the day. Dina leaned on the railing, taking in the scene. Ellie stood behind her, taking in her own scene.

“What do you think of this view?” Dina asked. 

Ellie stood next to Dina, stepped onto the bottom of the railing, and leaned the whole upper half of her body over it, allowing her to see essentially nothing better, but making her feel just a bit like she was flying over the mountainside. “It’s pretty nice.”

“This route has its perks.” Dina followed Ellie’s lead, stepping onto the railing and hanging over. For a bit, they remained there on the porch, flying over the mountains. Dina pointed out the next lookout they’d be checking out on their route. Ellie pointed out a fox she saw by the creek, probably trying to catch a fish. The fox slinked over the rocks, slowly appraising its prey, carefully watching for movement. The girls watched with bated breath as the fox teetered on the edge of a rock in the water, its head inching closer to the surface, slowly zeroing in. Finally, the fox lunged with full force into the water with a great splash, and clambered back onto the rocks holding a sizable fish in its mouth. The snow on the fox’s rock stained red from the blood dripping from the fish.

Ellie was proud. “Fuck yeah!” she shouted, and Dina high-fived her. The shouting seemed to startle the fox, which slipped on the rocks and back into the creek, letting out a yelp as it flailed in the water on its back, struggling to get back on its feet, and ran off under the cover of the trees when it finally did. The fish had fallen out of the fox’s mouth during its trip, and now fell stuck between two rocks; half its body lay on the edge of a rock, bleeding scarlet red into the snow, and the other half floundered in the rushing water, going nowhere. 

Dina and Ellie both bust with laughter, loudly enough to startle nearby birds out of their trees. The birds, in turn, startled Dina; her feet stumbled on the railings, and Ellie quickly steadied her with a hand on her back. Dina smiled and nudged her, and Ellie’s face flushed bright red—because of the cold. She removed her hand, and felt her throat dry up—purely due to the thin mountain air. Dina looked at Ellie, half smiling, and bit her lip. Ellie felt her own pulse in just about every part of her body, and, swallowing a fist-size lump in her throat, she pushed herself away from the railing and back towards the door. 

“Where do we sign in?” she asked, her voice cracking. 

Dina walked back into the building and gestured for Ellie to follow her. “Come on.”

Ellie took a deep breath before following.  _ Fuck. _

Dina twisted around toppled furniture and shimmied through crumbled walls, with Ellie not far behind. The floor was littered with various debris and garbage. Ellie was surprised no one had tried to tidy the place up while running the route. Not that she was jumping at the chance. 

“Who’d you used to do this route with? Jesse?” Ellie asked. She felt weird bringing up Jesse. She knew that Jesse was cool with everything, but she didn’t know if Dina was okay talking about him. 

Dina shook her head. “Eugene.”

That definitely explained why no one had tidied up. “Right, Eugene. Man, he was funny.” Ellie remembered a few jokes he’d told her that even Joel didn’t like to hear repeated. 

“Yeah, plus he taught me all about rewiring electronics and stuff. May we all be that sharp at 73.”

Ellie chuckled. “May we all make it to 73.” Eugene was among the oldest people Ellie ever knew. Most didn’t make it to 60. 

Dina pointed to a desk in the corner of the room they had wiggled into. There was an open logbook, a scattering of pens and pencils, some loose hardware, and a bong. “Sign us in?” Dina said, and she ducked under a bookcase that half-blocked a doorway, probably once someone’s attempt at a blockade. Ellie filled out the logbook, reading some of the previous entries as she did. Most of them were Eugene and Dina’s entries, written in Dina’s scraggly chicken scratch and hardly legible. The entries for the past month were mostly by Jesse with a revolving set of route partners, from Tommy to Joel to Dina to that dick Leon, who always cried wolf about seeing Infected nearby. Ellie was kind of annoyed Jesse never asked her to run the route with him. 

Dina still hadn’t come back from her snooping, though Ellie could hear her digging around out of sight not too far away.. Ellie decided to do some snooping of her own. The building had a lot of electronics, but someone had opened most of them up and removed the bulk of the junk inside. There was a wall of cassette tapes and broken CDs all over the floor. “What was this place?” Ellie asked. 

“Used to be a radio tower,” Dina said, popping back into the room. “That’s why Eugene liked this route so much. He could pick apart all the radios and junk for spare parts.” She tossed Ellie a granola bar. “They’re a little stale, but there’s a shit ton stocked around here.”

“Thank God for the doomsday preppers,” Ellie said. She opened the granola bar and bit in. Dina had not lied; it was definitely stale. It didn’t matter much. Ellie still scarfed it down. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was, but she didn’t get any breakfast before patrol and hadn’t really eaten much at the party last night, either. Already she felt herself coming back to life a little bit. By now her headache and hangover had subsided, and she was left with only mild hunger pangs and the general chest pain that accompanied being anywhere near Dina. 

Dina picked through some of the cassette tapes left by the shelves. Most of them looked broken or empty. Ellie picked up the bong off the desk. “I’m guessing this was Eugene’s?”

“Mine, actually.” Dina snatched it from Ellie. “It was a gift from Eugene.”

Made sense. “You got any on you?” 

“I always got mine from Eugene.” Dina shrugged. Unfortunate. Ellie could definitely use anything to relieve a little stress.

Dina left the bong back on the desk, and ducked back through the way they came. “The town up ahead is our next stop. Let’s get back to the horses.”

Ellie peaked at some of the CDs scattered around the floor as they left. Nothing good. Most were broken anyways. She was disappointed; it had been forever since she’d heard any new-to-her old music, and she was getting pretty tired of some of the CDs in her walkman rotation. 

“Question,” Dina said as they returned to the horses, who had shit quite a bit more while they were away. “Were you wearing those same clothes yesterday?”

_ Why bother asking a question you already know the answer to? _ “They’re clean!”

Dina put up her hands in defense. “Hey, no judgement.”

There was definitely a little bit of judgement. “It’s patrol. We’re here to kill Infected, not to look fancy.” So maybe the two weren’t mutually exclusive. Dina’s outfit definitely looked more...what? Fashionable? Put-together? Clean? Ellie hated those vests made out of coat material like the one Dina had on, though Dina pulled it off quite well. 

Dina mounted her horse. “You still look nice.”

What the fuck did that mean? “Thank you?”  _ Nice? _ Did she mean nice like, you don’t look atrocious? You look fine? You look great? You look drop dead sexy?

Yeah, probably not the last one. Ellie was wearing a gray hoodie, and it had certainly seen better days. Before mounting her horse, while Dina was looking away, Ellie chanced a quick sniff to her armpits. Not  _ that _ bad. She’d definitely bathe after patrol.

Ellie mounted her horse, very careful not to step in the horse poop that now covered the ground around her, and caught up with Dina, who was now trailing the creek towards the next lookout. Dina was shivering a bit. Ellie was, too, but she thought she was doing a better job hiding it. Crawling through the snow earlier to get at that stupid kid had left the front of her clothes soaked, and her back was wet from the falling snow melting onto her. Her hair was starting to stick to her neck. She put her hood up, but since her hood was already wet, it didn’t help much.

This part of the trail was quieter. The creek ran slower, and most of the wildlife seemed to have retreated to hide from the snow. The only prominent noises Ellie heard were the crunching snow under the horses’ feet, and her own heart beating so loudly she almost thought it would attract Infected. Ellie elected to take the opportunity to attempt conversation and pretend to be normal.

“I think we should go out like Eugene,” she said. 

Dina laughed. “Naked, from a stroke?” 

“No, from old age.” Ellie had been thinking about it a lot since Eugene’s death. So many people she knew had died such untimely, violent deaths, because of Infected, or because they crossed the wrong people, or because they couldn’t handle the stress of living anymore. She was more shocked to hear of Eugene’s quiet passing than she’d ever been hearing about someone getting swarmed by Infected or shot by someone they’d pissed off. “Peaceful. Living a long life.”

“You?” Dina scoffed. “No way. You’re way too reckless.”

“Look who’s talking!” 

Dina shook her head. “You’ll probably die from hypothermia from wearing canvas sneakers in the snow.” So she was never gonna drop that.

“I am wearing boots today,” Ellie said smugly. “Know how you’re gonna die?”

“Let me guess: You’re gonna kill me?” Ellie said nothing. “Ha, did I ruin your punchline?”

Ellie scrunched her face. “No.” A lie. “Maybe.” Less of a lie. “Fuck you.”

Dina laughed. She had such a weird laugh. Very loud and nasally. Ellie adored it. 

By now they had entered a small suburb—as suburban as things ever got in Wyoming. There were a few spaced out houses and some storefronts further out. It was certainly not like Boston, where the buildings were on top of each other and lawns were scarce. Ellie figured she would have preferred to live in a place like this, if she’d been around before the outbreak. Fewer people, more room to breathe. Joel said that cities like Boston used to be loud and dirty, with smog hanging in the air. Ellie would have hated that. She already had hated growing up in the Boston Quarantine Zone, which had a way lower population density than Boston had before the outbreak. Once, while clearing out an old government building on patrol, Ellie found an almanac that said some cities had more than ten thousand people per square mile. No wonder all those places got fucked in the outbreak. 

The neighborhood they were in now looked like it had been undisturbed for decades. It probably had. Suburbs weren’t exactly safe havens post-outbreak. Sure, there were fewer people around, but the spaced out housing made communication a lot harder. If someone somehow got Infected, their neighbors wouldn’t know until it was too late. That was, if FEDRA didn’t mandate their evacuation beforehand. Most suburbs that didn’t get evacuated from the start got taken out either by poor planning regarding the Infected, or were taken over at some point by hunters, bandits, or smugglers. 

“What do you know about this place?” Ellie asked. 

Dina shrugged. “Probably just another evac’ed town. Infected almost never make it out this far. We usually catch them on the outer perimeter.”  _ Boring _ . Ellie hadn’t killed any Infected in weeks. Technically, sure, that was a good thing, but there was something so exciting about fighting Infected, the adrenaline rush that came with it, not knowing whether she was going to make it out alive—okay, Ellie was generally pretty sure she was going to make it out alive—but the chance, and the risk, was so...invigorating? Thrilling, maybe? Just...a nice change of pace. And the fighting itself was just  _ fun _ . The physicality of it, the energy, and the unfettered intensity, was like nothing else Ellie experienced, except maybe on occasion, when—

“What’re you doing tonight?” Dina asked, jarring Ellie from her thoughts.

_ Uhh… _ “Uhh…” Why was Dina asking? They hadn’t hung out much, since Dina and Jesse had broken up. Well, there was last night, but Ellie did think that counted. It had been a long time since they’d hung out together, alone. Ellie couldn’t clearly remember the last time. Maybe before Ellie started dating Cat. That was years ago. Usually, it was the three of them: Ellie, Dina, and Jesse. They’d drink, or get high, or stay totally sober and still act just as dumb. They’d watch movies, have water gun fights, talk about dumb stuff or important stuff or nothing at all until the early morning, when Jesse and Dina would retire to Dina’s place across town, and Ellie would head back to her own room, alone and tired. 

“I was thinking of inviting Joel to watch a movie,” Ellie said. She definitely needed to talk with him, at the very least. She’d been thwarted this morning, but there was no way Joel would be busy after patrol.

“Oh. You guys...good?” It was a fair question. Dina was right in the middle of the action at the bar last night when Ellie yelled at him. Ellie figured it was more Dina’s business than it was Maria’s, at least.

“Yeah, we’re good.” 

Dina nodded. Ellie could barely tell, since Dina was facing away from her, and the snow was starting to block some of her vision anyway. She found herself trying to imagine what facial expressions Dina was making as she talked. Right now she probably looked suspicious, with an eyebrow raised—the right eyebrow, since she couldn’t raise the left one—and the corner of her mouth upturned. 

“What movie are you guys gonna watch?” Dina asked. “What’s Joel into?

Ellie sighed deeply. “ _ Curtis and Viper 2 _ . That’s the one that’s been on my radar for a while.” Tommy had found an intact VHS copy jammed in one of the VCRs Eugene had hoarded in his house, stripped for parts and strewn all about the floor and every surface. He gave Ellie the tape, knowing that between her and Joel, she held onto the CDs, records, DVDs, tapes, cassettes, and everything else. She used them more.

Dina half-snorted. “Oh wow.” 

“We always used to watch these cheesy 80s movies. He’s really into them.” Ellie was both grateful and stupefied by the number of tacky action movies made in the 80s. Where did these filmmakers find the time?

“Oh no,” Dina said. Her voice sounded sympathetic. Ellie imagined she was sarcastically frowning.

“I actually really like them too. They’re funny. And the fight scenes are crazy.” Later movies just didn’t compare. The fight scenes were always so drawn out and bumbling, and everyone had stunt doubles and a million safety measures in place. The old ones felt way more real, but at the same time hilariously over-acted and dramatic. The music was fun. “What about you? What’re you doing later?”

“Some people were talking about sneaking out. Going sledding.” Ellie tried to picture Dina’s mischievous face. Probably a full smirk, with both sides of her mouth upturned. She couldn’t decide if the right eyebrow was cocked or if both eyebrows furrowed. 

Ellie was not bothered that no one invited her sledding. At all. She didn’t care. She wondered if it was because of last night. “Sounds fun.”

“Yeah. You wanna meet up after?” She said it so casually, like it was totally normal for them to just  _ meet up _ . Alone. Like they did it all the time. 

Ellie tried to act casual. She was very glad that Dina could not see her face. “Uh, okay.” And that was that. They were going to hang out later. Ellie felt very calm about this, and not nervous or excited at all.

What would they do, though? Dina probably didn’t want to watch cheesy action movies or read comics. Dina was Dina, though. She’d find some way to make things exciting.

“So what’s  _ Curtis and Viper 2 _ about?” Dina asked. Ellie wasn’t sure if she was just asking to make conversation or if she really wanted to know, but...Ellie had a lot to say about the series.

“So there’s these two former commandos who team up to fight bad guys. I think in this one they go up against Russian spies.” So many of the movies from the 80s had the Russians as the enemy. Joel told her it was because at that time the US was fighting against Russia in the “Cold War,” which was the stupidest thing Ellie had ever heard. A whole big thing between two of the biggest countries on Earth, and it lasted for years, and neither of them ever did anything! What was the point? So much time and energy wasted on talk and empty threats. If someone wanted to win, they should have just nuked the other.

Joel explained the whole idea of “mutually assured destruction” to her, that if one country sent all these bombs, the other would follow suit, and both would get screwed. Even then, the easiest answer is to just be faster than the other guys. Easy.

“I’m more interested in this than I thought I’d be,” Dina said. Picturing a shocked expression was easy. Both eyebrows raised, eyes wide, mouth just a bit agape.

Ellie was not going to waste the opportunity to explain  _ Curtis and Viper _ . “So the younger one, Viper, he’s a trained ninja. And he’s a complete badass.”

“How old is he in the first movie?”

“Uh, ten.” Pretty young to be a ninja-badass, maybe, but Ellie had done some pretty cool stuff at that age, too.

“Wait, how many movies did they make?”

Ellie wasn’t totally sure. “I think they made four?” It was either that, or six. She was getting mixed up with another series. 

“Jeez.”

“Joel actually saw the last one in theaters. Isn’t that crazy?” Joel loved to brag about all the movies he saw in theaters and the bands he saw in concert. Ellie could admit she was jealous.

They were passing through the town’s shopping district now. There weren’t a whole lot of shops. A post office that was already well-picked through, a gas station with shattered windows, a flower shop overgrown with weeds, and one of those year-round Christmas stores. Ellie loved those. They were so dumb. Who needed Christmas junk year round? Maria went with Tommy a couple weeks ago to pick through the remains of the Christmas store for decorations for last night’s party, and Ellie could see that they’d picked it clean. There were only a few strings of garland and some broken ornaments on the ground. 

There was a bigger store a bit ahead of them, blocked off by stalled and crashed cars strewn all about the road. “Think they’ve got any supplies?” Ellie asked. The store looked pretty untouched, with no broken windows or cracked exterior walls.

Dina shrugged. “Worth checking out.” Ellie and Dina dropped from their horses and hitched the reins to a bike rack.  _ Horses, bikes, _ Ellie thought,  _ tomato, tomahto _ .

“Do you think anybody out there is still making movies?” Dina asked, as they wandered through the maze of cars and trucks.

“Has to be,” Ellie said with conviction.

“But how do you know?” Dina said. Ellie didn’t have to imagine what her expression looked like now; they were side by side, and she could see it clearly. Argumentative. Brows furrowed, lips pursed. “What if they’re all like us, just surviving day to day?”

“I mean, I write new music, so if someone had a camera—” 

“Wait, hold up,” Dina interrupted. “There are original Ellie songs? And I haven’t heard them?”

To be fair, no one had heard them, except Ellie. “I mean, I…”

Dina pouted. “Will you play one for me tonight?” She batted her lashes. Ellie was sure she was joking, but...she was finding it very hard to say no at the moment.

“I’ll think about it.”

Dina smiled. They continued working through the labyrinth, having to vault over a car every now and again. Ellie loved hopping over cars. It made her feel like an action hero in one of those movies.

As they got closer to the store, the scent of death wafted towards them. Unmistakable. Ellie’s neck hair stood on end, and she pulled the shotgun off her shoulder. Dina crouched, unholstering her handgun. They made eye contact, and Dina nodded for Ellie to go ahead. Dina held her gun to guard, right on Ellie’s tail. Slowly, they crept through the cars, sniffing out the source of that awful stench. No matter how many times Ellie smelled it, she was sure she’d never get used to it. This stench, especially, seemed like it had been festering for days. At least it wasn’t hot out. That might make her nauseous. 

Ellie was on high alert, listening for Infected—the torturous grunting of runners, or the echolocating chittering of Clickers, or the hollow moaning of a Bloater. She didn’t hear anything—yet—but she wasn’t about to put her guard down. There could still be a Stalker—god, she hated those motherfuckers—or even a human enemy. 

Step by step, they approached the store, the stench growing worse by the inch. At each car, Ellie rounded to the front, shotgun first, to check for bodies. Dina surveyed the surrounding area, gun drawn. Ellie noticed how Dina squinted one eye tightly as she looked around. 

As she rounded an overturned white van, the stench overwhelmed Ellie, and she had to step back to cover her mouth with her hoodie. She nodded at Dina. This was definitely where the smell was coming from. Dina circled to the other side of the van, and, at her signal, both she and Ellie crept around the sides, fingers on triggers, ready for action. They cleared to the front of the van, looked to the ground, and gagged.

There was a huge moose, stomach torn open, guts splayed about, the edges of the wound blackened. Blood dried into its fur and the pavement around it. Thousands of bugs were crawling through the open wound, which had already been picked at by carrion birds. This moose had been there for days. There were claw marks—five fingers—along its side, bite marks in its legs, fur ripped out at the throat. 

“Looks like Infected did this,” Dina observed. No doubt about it.

“How many do you think it would take to bring down a moose?” Ellie asked. Ellie had seen Infected tackle deer, humans, and one time a wolf, but never something as massive as a moose. Those things were huge.

Dina shook her head. “More than one.” She holstered her handgun, and drew her shotgun. “Let’s go find ‘em.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got longer than I expected. Initially I intended to put all of the creek trails content in one chapter, but I'm not posting a 20,000 word chapter.
> 
> Anyways, I love pining. Some of the in-game convos felt forced and weird. Some things are difficult to translate from game to text. So I nixed 'em. Sorry 'bout it.
> 
> As always, let me know what works and what doesn't, or whatever else. I read comments, even if I don't respond.


	4. Chance Encounter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one is different. Starts off the same, changes about half way in, I think.

As they approached the store—crouched low, moving slowly—they could hear it: The moaning. From behind a stalled car, they examined the building, looking for holes in the concrete, shattered windows, broken planks of wood where someone had boarded up the doors. Nothing. 

“How the fuck did they get in there?”

She cocked her gun. “Time to find out.” 

They searched for a vantage point. She pointed to one, a wooden balcony hanging over an old shop. The boards looked a little rough, but they ought to support both women for long enough for them to look for a way into the store. 

They crouch-walked to the shop. The balcony was just a bit too high to reach from the ground. They’d have to find a way to scramble up. They clambered on top of a car, then some scaffolding, and finally were able to leap onto the balcony—first dangling from the edge, then having to pull their full bodies on, which was extremely difficult to do without making much noise, especially in this weather. The cold bit. The snow made it hard to grip anything. They’d known it would be cold, but weren’t quite prepared for this. 

From atop the balcony, they could see over the whole shopping district. The dilapidated storefronts, the weather-torn cars littering the street, the roof of the grocery store. There was a hole in the roof. Probably all the snow had weighed it down, after it had already spent decades accumulating mold and termite damage. That was their way in.

They could see their own tracks in the snow, barely. The snow was falling fast enough that they were already mostly covered. Past the stores, they saw houses, trailers, trees, the creek—and two horses, tied to a bike rack.  _ Shit _ . They looked at each other, wide-eyed, both nodding towards the horses. Their eyes followed two very faint sets of tracks leading away from the horses, towards the store. They couldn’t be Infected tracks. Their paths were too straight and considered, too evenly spaced, no blood trails. Had to be live humans. 

The snow covered parts of the tracks. They squinted, trying to find where the tracks may lead. Were they already in the store? Should they try and run to avoid a fight, or could these people have the information they needed?

They searched the ground, their guns following the same movements as their eyes. Nothing. No one. Everything on the ground was still, save for the falling snow and—there! Movement behind a white van. Gray against the white. The snow was falling hard—it was impossible to see clearly.

There were two figures behind the van. She couldn’t tell what these people looked like. It was far, and the snow was thick. They were pretty small. Children, women, or very slim men. Definitely not who they were looking for. 

The people on the ground were still, crouched, listening. Very slowly they crept forward, inch by inch. The one in gray froze. Their hand raised to the back of their neck. They reached for the person in front of them, grabbing hold of their arm. Then, very quickly, both whipped around to face the balcony, guns drawn, aimed straight. Fingers on triggers.

_ Shit _ . They’d been seen. For a moment the four of them stood still, silently, guns aimed at each other from across the lot.

The two on the ground inched a bit closer. They most likely didn’t want a fight, it seemed, or they would have fired already. They were probably aware of the Infected inside the store, and didn’t want to draw them out, which would inevitably happen if there was gunfire. 

Slowly, they lowered their guns. So they wanted to talk. Fine. 

The women climbed down from the balcony. From the balcony to the ground, they wouldn’t be able to talk without shouting, which would alert the Infected. They kept their guns drawn, but moved their fingers off the triggers. 

The pairs stood on either side of a rusted out pick-up truck. There was a topless hula-dancer bobble head on the dashboard. Three air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror. Piles of trash in the passenger’s seat. Empty toolboxes in the truckbed. 

She could see their faces now. Both women. Young. One blank faced, the other grimacing. She studied their faces. She never forgot a face. Grimace had the shotgun, now strapped over her shoulder. Scar on her eyebrow. Green eyes. Face freckled to hell. Pale skin. Brown hair. Auburn, maybe. At the moment, her hair was wet with snow.

Blank face had darker skin, darker hair, warmer clothes. Big eyes. Long nose. Shorter than Grimace. Friendlier stance. Still held her handgun. 

They sized each other up. The other women had a few advantages. They were smaller, quicker, likely more familiar with the location. Both had shotguns over their shoulders. She could see the outline of a knife in Grimace’s pocket. 

But they were soaked from the snow; they’d definitely been outside longer. Their frames were more slight, less muscled. They were clearly quite cold and tired. 

In the silence, they could hear the Infected inside the grocery store, the horses huffing, the wind blowing past. Grimace spoke first. Impatient. 

“You two from around here?” she asked. Voice low and hushed, so the Infected wouldn’t hear. 

“No. You?”

The two made eye contact. “No.” Clearly a lie.  _ Can’t blame them. _ “Got names?”

“Abby,” she said. She nodded to her friend. “Nora. You?”

They met eyes again. Untrustworthy. Clearly close with each other. “I’m Riley,” Grimace said. Doubtful.

Blank face reached her hand over the truckbed. “Talia.” Abby shook her hand. She did not trust these women. She did not put down her gun. 

“What brings you two to the area?” Nora asked. 

“Passing through.” Grimace—“Riley”—whatever—sniffled. There was a bit of snot running down her face. She sniffed again, trying to shoot it back up her nose. Didn’t work. Finally she wiped her nose with her wet sleeve.

“Same,” Nora said. “You notice the Infected inside?”

Blank face nodded. “They took down a moose over there. Gotta be quite a few of them.” That explained the rank stench. 

What did Blank face say her name was? Talia. She didn’t look like a Talia. She hadn’t sounded too certain when she introduced herself. Something was definitely fishy. Abby wasn’t sure they should stick around. 

The other one—Riley—was staring at Abby. She looked suspicious. Clearly, neither party had much trust in the other. Abby stared back. 

“Think we should clear them or leave it be?” Nora asked. Abby and Riley kept their eyes on each other.

“We were thinking of checking the building for supplies,” Talia said. “Big grocery store, looks pretty untouched. It might have decent stuff.”

Nora nodded. “We wouldn’t mind getting in on that.” Abby was annoyed, but Nora had a point. They were running low on food. They could hunt, which would be a pain given the snow, or they could grab some nonperishables. With four people, whatever Infected were inside weren’t likely to be much trouble. 

Finally, Riley tore her eyes from Abby and looked to Nora. Her nose was running again. She sniffled. “You two good with your guns?”

Abby laughed. Unbelievable question. “Yeah, we’re alright.” Riley nodded. Sniffled. 

“We haven’t found a way in except breaking a window,” Talia said. 

“There’s a hole in the roof,” Nora said. “If we can find a way up there, we could get in easy. It can’t more than a ten-foot drop.”

“So we find a way up,” Riley said. “Talia and I will check out the left side of the building, you two head around the right, and we’ll meet up in the back.”

They split. Abby and Nora rounded to the right. There were cars and trees blocking much of the way, and they had to squeeze through the tight spaces between the building and the cars, crates, and dumpsters that had been piled up against it. Someone had tried to block off the rear of the building so it couldn’t be accessed from the street. Probably trying to protect against Infected. Obviously they failed. 

There was no way up along this side of the building. The gutters hung over too far, so there would be nothing sturdy to grab onto.

As Nora came to the corner and began to turn it, Abby grabbed her arm and held her back. “Hey,” she said in a whisper, “you trust those two?”

“More or less. They seem decent, and we need the supplies.” Nora shrugged.

“Who’s to say they won’t shoot us as soon as we clear the Infected in the building?”

Nora shook her head. “They could have shot us up on the balcony. And we could have shot them. I think we’re fine.”

Abby wasn’t so sure. She’d keep her guard up.

They turned the corner and saw Riley and Talia not far away. Riley waved them over.

“There’s a delivery truck around the side there.” She pointed. Abby could see the end of a semi-truck sticking out from the side of the building. “We can climb on top of that then onto the roof. There was a Clicker around the side, but we took care of it.” Abby noticed that Riley’s knife was now in her hand, dripping blood.

“Good,” Abby said, and they followed Riley and Talia to the truck. The side of the truck said, in large cursive, “SALT LAKE BREWING CO.” That stung a little.

The hood of the truck was low enough to climb onto, but a sheet of ice had frozen onto it. Carefully, they chipped at the ice—mostly Nora and Talia, as they were the only ones wearing gloves. Abby and Riley continued their staring match.

“Okay, help me up,” Talia said, putting her hand on Riley’s shoulder. Riley boosted her onto the hood of the truck, which now had a few square feet clear of ice. Talia climbed up on top of the sleeper cabin, then to the trailer. Nora followed, with Riley boosting her up as well. Then Riley and Abby glared at each other, a bit awkwardly. Abby did not particularly want to boost Riley up, as it would put her in a rather vulnerable position—Riley could easily stab her in the throat while she was bent over. But Abby was definitely bigger and stronger than Riley. She kneeled to let Riley step onto her thigh, then helped her push off and onto the hood of the truck. Riley offered Abby a hand and helped to pull her up. As soon as they were both atop the cab, they brushed their hands clean on their sleeves and followed Talia and Nora onto the trailer. 

From there they hopped onto the roof. It was a bit farther than they had thought from the ground—a couple feet, maybe three. Abby didn’t like that. She looked over the side of the trailer, and saw the Clicker Riley mentioned. Stabbed in the neck. Smart. A small bit of blood pooled around it in the snow. The Clicker didn’t look like it had turned all that long ago—a couple years, at most. The fungi growing out of its head had barely cracked its skull, and part of the skin on its bare arms still clung on, free of mold. Its mouth and nose weren’t yet covered by fungus.

One after the other, they hopped from the trailer to the roof. Abby went last. She did not want to do this. It was a far jump. If she slipped, the fall would be loud, and she might break a bone when she hit the ground. She met Nora’s eyes, which held a lot of judgement. As always. 

Riley glanced around, held up a finger, then jogged off to the side of the roof. She came back holding a wide plank of wood—probably 8 feet long, a foot or so across. “Should work,” she muttered, and set it between the roof and the trailer like a bridge. She gave Abby an unsmiling thumbs up.

That was a bit easier to cross. Abby still didn’t like it, but it was better than potentially leaping to her death. One foot in front of the other. Eyes ahead. If she didn’t look down, she could pretend she was walking on solid ground. Once Abby got onto the roof, Nora punched her in the arm. Abby shook it off.

The roof was clear. There was a layer of snow with a few odds and ends poking up—a lawn chair, some wood pallets, empty alcohol bottles. The hole in the roof was sizable. Talia walked over to it first, being the smallest and least likely to break through the tender roof. The others stayed close to the edge, where it was sturdiest. 

Talia leaned over to look through the hole, quickly, then took a step back. She held up three fingers. Three Infected, then, within sight at least. She held her hand with her fingers splayed out and moved it from the top of her head outwards. Clickers.  _ Shit _ .

They wouldn’t be able to drop down through the hole; it would make too much noise and alert the Clickers. Runners would have been easy, since their hearing isn’t quite refined yet. But Clickers could hear everything.

Talia circled around the hole to the other side, so she could see more of the inside of the store. Four fingers. Two fingers in a walking motion across the other palm. Four Runners. Great.

Seven Infected inside one building—eight, counting the one Riley already killed. A weird amount for a place so far removed from living people. How long had they been in there? How did they get in there in the first place?

The smell of death was even worse on the roof. The rotting skin and fungus from all the Infected inside smelled strong. They could hear the clicking and moaning clearly now.

Talia scampered back over to the others. “Can’t drop with all those Clickers. If someone lowered me down, it might be quiet enough for me to take out the Clickers without any of them noticing.”

They all looked to Abby. Even through her heavy jacket, it was evident she was the strongest of them. She nodded, and went to follow Talia to the hole. With her back turned, she heard Riley mutter something behind her.

“What was that?” she asked in a hushed voice. She turned around, and saw Riley’s eyes were wide.

“Salt Lake City,” Riley repeated. Abby was confused, then remembered—the stupid patch on her backpack. Hogle Zoo, Salt Lake City. Her dad sewed it on almost a decade ago. “You guys are from Salt Lake?”

Abby and Nora were silent. They met eyes, then looked back to Riley.

Riley took a step towards Abby. “Are you Fireflies?”

Abby put her hand on her gun in its holster. “There are no Fireflies.”

Riley put both her hands in the air, showing she wasn’t a threat. Abby looked back at Talia, who mirrored Riley. Talia looked confused, one eyebrow raised at Riley. Riley looked wired. “ _ Were _ you Fireflies?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Abby said. She wished this girl would drop it. 

No such luck. “Do you know Marlene?” Riley asked, taking another step forward. Abby flipped open the strap on her holster. “Why’d you leave Salt Lake?”

“What do you mean, why’d we leave Salt Lake? If you’re Firefly, you know what happened,” Nora said with an edge to her voice. 

Riley looked confused. Her eyes flitted between Abby and Nora. “I don’t know--”

“How the hell did you know Marlene?” Abby asked. Who the fuck was this girl?

“I-- _ did _ ? What happened to Marlene?” Riley asked. Her eyes were wide. Her arms were still raised, but lowering slowly. Talia already matched Abby, her hand resting on the gun on her hip.

Nora shook her head. “So what, you know the Fireflies disbanded but don’t know what happened in Salt Lake?” It didn’t make sense to Abby either. 

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Riley insisted. If she was lying, she was working hard to cover it. Abby couldn’t figure out what angle Riley was playing--or if there was an angle at all.

“How did you know Marlene?” Abby asked again. Riley looked to Talia, who looked even more confused than the rest of them. Abby watched Talia’s grip tighten on her gun.

Riley swallowed. “I grew up in the Boston QZ,” she said, seeming unsure if she meant it.

Abby blinked. Boston. 

In a flash, she drew her gun, aiming straight at Riley—fake name. Talia drew hers just as quickly, pointing it at Abby. Abby couldn’t risk a glance to Nora to see if she’d been quick enough to draw. Her eyes were locked on Riley.

Riley’s hands shot up again in surrender. Her mouth opened and closed, unable to find words. She looked at Talia, at Abby, just over Abby’s shoulder to Nora. She sniffled. 

“Where is he?” Abby asked. Her voice was louder than it should be. She heard the Clickers below grow a tad louder, sensing that something living was nearby.

Riley shook her head hard. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

Abby cocked her gun. Talia straightened her aim, directly at Abby’s head. Abby didn’t care. She stepped towards Riley, slowly, keeping her gun trained directly between Riley’s eyes. Riley took a step back, chancing a glance behind her to make sure she wasn’t getting too close to the hole in the roof. She stuck out her arms to keep her balance.

Abby stopped once Riley stood no more than a couple of feet from the edge. She looked hard at Riley’s face. It had to be her. Abby hardened her voice as much as she could, and she spoke the name that had been playing on a loop in her mind for five years. “Joel Miller.”

Riley’s breath hitched. It was her. She knew him. She knew where he was. “Where is he?” she asked again through gritted teeth. The Clickers below them grew louder and louder. Abby took another step. Riley backed closer to the hole.

“Go fuck yourself,” Riley said, her voice suddenly much more certain than it had been. She set her hand on her holstered gun.

“Hey, hands up!” Nora barked. The Clickers below shrieked. Abby could hear even the Runners wailing. The Infected knew they were there.

Riley kept her hand on her gun. “Fucking shoot me then. Go ahead,” she said, nodding her chin at Nora.

Abby flicked her head back to Nora. She knew as soon as she did it that she’d fucked up. In the instant that her eyes were off Riley, Riley had drawn her gun, and now took a step towards Abby. “Get the fuck back,” Abby said. Her gun was still pointed straight at Riley.

“Fucking shoot me!” Riley said again, taking another step forward.

“Hey!” Talia said, finally breaking her silence. Abby kept her eyes on Riley. In her peripheral, she could see that Talia’s gun was still aimed right at her. “Let’s put the guns down, and you two get the hell out of here,” Talia said roughly.

Abby’s eyes bore into Riley’s. Deep green. Abby drew her brows together. “Where is Joel Miller?” she seethed. 

“Either shoot me, or get the fuck outta here,” Riley said, her eyes wild. 

Abby took a step towards her, and another, and another. Soon, Riley was in arm’s reach, Abby’s gun nearly pressing into Riley’s freckled forehead, Riley’s gun mere inches from Abby’s face. “You tell me where to find Joel!” Abby saw spit from her own mouth hit Riley’s face. Riley took a small step forward. Abby heard one of the other women shout “Stop”--Nora, she thought, but wasn’t positive. Abby wasn’t sure who she was talking to. Didn’t matter.

Abby could tell they were close to the hole in the roof. Too close, probably. She didn’t care. The Clickers screeched below, yearning for the life stirring above them. Abby wondered if Infected even attacked Riley, or if they could tell Riley was like them--that her brain was wrapped in cordyceps, just like the Infected. She wanted to find out.

Riley could tell she was too close to the edge. Abby saw it in her eyes--in the way her feet were shifting. Riley made to take a step forward, but Abby pressed her gun to Riley’s forehead to keep her back. “Where is he?” Abby asked again. The Clickers chattered loudly. They were ready for blood.

“Step the fuck back!” Talia shouted. Abby was sure Talia’s gun was still pointed at her. She could hear Talia stepping closer. She didn’t care.

“Where the fuck is he?” Abby’s voice was hoarse. Her throat felt scratchy. 

“Abby, stop!” Nora shouted

Abby’s hands were shaking. She hadn’t noticed before. Were they always shaking? Her breaths were coming too fast, too shallow. Her arms were straining; it was too cold, she’d been holding up her gun for so long. 

It happened too fast. Riley tried to step forward. Abby pushed her back with her empty hand. Riley grabbed it, twisted, dropping her own gun in the process. It clambered down the hole. Abby shifted her own gun in her hand, used her palm to press Riley back by the forehead. Riley reached for Abby’s gun. Abby twisted away, wrenching her arm away from Riley. Riley grabbed her by the neck. Abby gripped Riley’s hair. Their feet shifted. The ground was icy. One of them stumbled. Abby didn’t know who. It didn’t matter. Suddenly, all too suddenly, there was shouting, and with her hand pulling at Riley’s hair, and Riley’s hand gripping Abby’s neck, they were falling, and then there was nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Copy & pasted from first work: Sorry not sorry if anybody thought I was just not going to include Abby. I am going to include Abby.
> 
> I didn't like their first encounter in the game. Changed it. Made it all up. Dialogue might seem off because of that.
> 
> I liked Abby in the game. I liked her story line, for the most part. But I thought she was underdeveloped, and boring at times, especially pre-Lev/Yara. So I'm attempting to develop her character a bit more, as well as members of her posse. Here especially I'd love any input. If your input is "get rid of Abby," I do not want your input.
> 
> I felt that some, uh, driving motivations in the game were, uh, kind of stupid. So uh. I have altered that a bit.
> 
> ____
> 
> Notes specific to the new chapter:  
> I don't even know. Does it matter? Probably not. I just didn't like the old chapter. Changes I wanted to make to the direction of the story would have retconned part of the old chapter, so I said fuck it, I'll redo it. And I did.
> 
> As always, hit me with your thoughts, comments, questions, concerns. Live laugh love.


	5. Falling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter. Lotta stuff. Some copied from old chapter. Some new.

Ellie knew they were going to fall before they were falling. The way Abby was approaching her, yelling, spit flying from her mouth, Ellie knew all she could do was try to make Abby back up, or prepare for the fall. The first option didn’t work. It may have made things worse. So Ellie did what she could. She remembered what they taught her about falling correctly at the FEDRA school. Keep your knees bent, cover your head, land on the meatiest part of your body possible. As she flew through the air with her hand wrapped around Abby’s throat, it occurred to her that this massive, muscled woman was the meatiest body possible. She did what she could to twist their bodies in the air--to put herself above the other woman. By the time they hit the ground, she had been mostly successful. Ellie banged her elbow a bit, but the other woman took the brunt of the fall. 

The more difficult part to prepare for, of course, was the Infected, now fully aware of the humans milling out, and currently swarming where Ellie and Abby lay.

Her fucking gun. She knew it was somewhere down here, but she didn’t see it. Abby was probably fucking on top of it. She looked unconscious. Not Ellie’s problem. Abby’s gun was on the ground next to her hand, and Ellie picked it up and shot the nearest Clicker, just feet away, square in its face. Another, just beside the other. Two shots, neck then face. Ellie felt the blood splatter on her face. Warm. Disgusting. She clambered to her feet, tried to run, but hands were grabbing her from behind. She pulled her shoulder to her cheek, covering her neck, and dug for the knife in her pocket. She jammed the knife behind her, hoping it stuck in the Infected’s throat, but would settle for anything that would make the nasty fucker let her go. It screamed, mouth inches from her ear, and she felt its blood seep into her hoodie. She stabbed again. It screamed louder, higher, and let go. Ellie kicked her leg backwards, hitting the Clicker’s knee. It toppled, and she shot it through the eye. She heard the Runners howling, heard their labored footsteps, uneven and heavy. She ran. 

She ducked behind a shelf, wiped her bloodied knife on her jeans, and stuffed it back into her pocket. She heard the Runners not far off. As quickly as she could, she checked the magazine of Abby’s gun. Four bullets left. One for each remaining Infected. She still had her shotgun slung over her shoulder, loaded with two rounds. She’d have to make her shots count.

Ellie peeked her head over the shelf. Abby was no longer sprawled on the ground below the hole in the roof. She was nowhere to be seen. Ellie heard a gunshot across the store, saw a Runner stumble backwards and scream. Another gunshot, and it was on the ground, twitching, bleeding. 

The remaining Runners beelined to the source of the gunshots. It had to be Abby. And she had to be using Ellie’s gun, which Ellie knew only had two bullets remaining. 

She thought about letting the Runners get Abby. It would certainly solve some problems. But Ellie needed answers. About the Fireflies, about Marlene, about Salt Lake. And about Joel. 

Keeping low, Ellie left her hiding spot behind the shelf, rounding the store to come up behind a Runner, which was charging towards a shelf Ellie assumed Abby had to be bunkered behind. She shot it once in the head, and it collapsed. The remaining Runners howled, changing their paths and now running towards Ellie. She lined up a shot at one, pulled the trigger, and nothing. She pulled the trigger again. Nothing. Click. Fuck. Jammed. Fucking jammed. The Runners kept coming. Ellie ran. 

She shoved Abby’s worthless piece of shit jammed fucking gun into her pocket. She reached for the shotgun on her shoulder, but before she could grab it she was being pulled, then pushed, then tackled. Fuck. She thrashed, throwing the Runner off of her, and flipped onto her back. The Runner was back on her in an instant, teeth chomping at her, yellowy eyes boring into hers, brownish drool falling to her face. Ellie used both hands to push it back, kicked her legs wildly, but it didn’t move. She could hear the other Runner not far off, screaming, desperate, charging towards her. 

Then there was a gunshot, and something falling to the floor. Footsteps, fast, getting closer, and then the Runner was being pulled off of her, its teeth still biting at the air. Ellie gasped, not realizing until then that she’d been holding her breath. A gunshot, and the Runner’s head blew open, blood and brains and skull fragments splattering like shrapnel across the shelves, the floor, Ellie’s face and chest. Ellie looked up to face her savior, expecting Abby, but much happier to see a woman who, until now, she had not thought could she could ever feel more strongly for.

“Fucking idiot,” Dina said breathlessly. There was blood on her face, muck in her hair, dark red stains settling into that dumb vest. “Are you clean? Are you hurt?”

Ellie got to her feet, and wiped her face on the wet sleeve of her hoodie. “I’m good. Banged my elbow.”

“Oh, what, when you fell through the goddamn hole in the roof? What the fuck was all that about?” Dina asked. She was angry. Ellie didn’t know how to answer. And right now, they didn’t have the time. Ellie needed to get back to Abby and Nora. She had questions for them. Now that they were off the roof, and Ellie and Dina had killed nearly all of the Infected by themselves, Ellie thought she might have more sway over the situation.

“We can talk about it later, okay?” Ellie said. “Right now, we need to find--”

Before she could finish, she heard what had to be her least favorite sound in the world. A low, scratchy groaning, accompanied by pounding on the walls. The groaning got louder, the pounding more forceful. Ellie looked to the far wall of the store, which was shaking.  _ Fuck my day _ , Ellie thought. Dina, knowing just as well what was coming, pushed Ellie behind a shelf, where they both crouched and dug into their backpacks for shotgun shells. Dina had four. Ellie had none, and she suddenly remembered the rush she had been in that morning. Dina rolled her eyes and gave two of her shells to Ellie, who crammed them into her front pocket just as the wall on the other side bust open, sending drywall flying. As the dust cleared, Ellie peered around the shelf they crouched behind to confirm her suspicions. As the dust settled, of course, she saw that she was right. There was no mistaking that awful groaning.

Fucking Bloater.

The nasty fuckers made her skin crawl. The smell alone, wafting quickly across the store towards them, was wretched--sour, rotten, visceral; like the smell of death had been trapped under the Bloater’s thick fungal plating, and mixed with the stench of the skin and organs rotting under those plates for a decade or longer. Plus the fucking myotoxin bombs. The fucking clumps of fungus and rotten flesh, seeped with gaseous fucking venom that seared any flesh it reached. 

Ellie didn’t know how or why these stupid fucking monsters evolved. Why did it have to get worse than Clickers? Why couldn’t Infected just max out there? 

For the time being, that didn’t matter, she supposed. What mattered was killing the motherfucker.

Dina nodded at her, then towards a nearby shelf. Ellie, still crouched, hurried to the shelf, Dina close on her heels. The Bloater groaned, stumbling about, searching for whatever had alerted it from its long hibernation. 

Eight shots. They had eight shots to take the beast down. Dina lined up a shot and fired, hitting square on the chest, cracking the fungal plates there and making the Bloater stumble back and howl. It honed in on the sound and lumbered towards them. Dina fired again, blasting one of its arms to shit, but not slowing it down. With its remaining arm, it grabbed at a patch on its chest, ripping out a myotoxin bomb and hurling it towards them as it continued its charge.

Dina and Ellie ran. Dina slowed and crouched behind a shelf to reload, while Ellie continued on, coming up behind the Bloater. She aimed and fired. The Bloater croaked loudly, and Ellie fired again. She didn’t look to see where it hit. She saw chunks of its plating flying off its body, and she ran. Somewhere, she heard glass shattering. Did the Bloater topple a display case? Had Dina broken a window as a distraction? Didn’t matter. The Bloater still ran towards the spot Ellie had fired from, and Ellie needed to get the fuck away from there.

Four shots left. They’d already exhausted half their ammo and the Bloater wasn’t slowing down. Where the fuck were Abby and Nora? Why weren’t they helping?

Almost as soon and Ellie had crouched behind a counter to load her final shells into her gun, Dina took her third shot. The fourth followed not long after. Ellie heard the Bloater stomping towards Dina, away from where Ellie was hunkered, and she took a deep breath. Two shots to end it.

She stood fully and tried to assess the damage they’d done to the Bloater thus far. An arm gone, plenty of chest plating lost. It looked like Dina had managed to knock some chunks of fungus off its head, exposing its cracked, blackened skull. Thank god.

Ellie watched the Bloater reach for the myotoxin patch on its back, and shouted, “Hey ugly!”

The Bloater stopped its heavy clamboring towards Dina, and turned to Ellie. Before it started to charge towards her, she quickly fired, hitting its shoulder.  _ Fuck _ . It surged forward, and she gulped a breath and took her final shot. A fucking headshot. The Bloater groaned and stumbled, and keeled over towards its armless side. It croaked and thrashed, and finally expelled its last defence--its final cloud of venom, wafting around its rotten, tattered body. It was disgusting, and it smelled, but it was finally dead.

“Fuck yeah!” Dina shouted. She popped over the top of a counter across the store, fists raised in celebration, her shotgun slung back over her shoulder.

Ellie took a deep breath, then regretted it when the stench hit her taste buds. “That sucked,” she said. She looked about the store. Dead Runners and Clickers splayed about, the Bloater a massive centerpiece. Dina stood triumphantly atop the counter. And otherwise, the store was empty. “What the hell happened to Abby and Nora?”

Dina pointed at a shattered window. “Guess they bolted. Cowards.”

Ellie was not happy about this. She wanted answers. She wanted to know what happened in Salt Lake, and why these women were looking for Joel--and how they knew Ellie would know where he was. “Dammit,” she muttered.

“That’s good, though, right?” Dina said. She jumped off the counter, landing lightly on her feet. “They almost killed you up there. Wanna tell me what that was about now?”

Ellie shrugged. The truth was, she didn’t know. She didn’t know what was up with Salt Lake, with Marlene, with Joel.  _ What the hell did you  _ do _ , Joel? _ “They weren’t going to kill me. They wanted something from me.”

“Yeah, to know where Joel is. I mean, Jesus, what did he do?” Dina was picking through the shelves, digging for anything worthwhile. Ellie watched her pocket a candybar, and felt jealous. She was hungry. 

“He got into some shady stuff after the Outbreak. Could be anything,” Ellie said. She wandered to another set of shelves and started to search for anything useful. Preferably edible.

Dina laughed. “Yeah, fair enough. I’m sure we’ve all got someone after us--did I ever tell you about Colorado Springs?” Dina said. Ellie shook her head. She remembered the shit she and Joel had gotten into when they passed through Colorado, and wondered if Dina ran across any of the same people. “I wonder if they know Joel’s around here? Where’d they even come from?”

Ellie found a packet of baseball cards, and pocketed them to give to Tommy later. He liked baseball, and despite Maria’s complaints, he loved collecting knickknacks. “Salt Lake, maybe? But that’s a two-week trip even when the weather  _ isn’t _ shit.”

“Their jackets said WLF,” Dina said. “Think the W stands for Wyoming?”

Ellie thought about it. “We’d have known before now if there was another group in Wyoming. Especially if they’re gunning for Joel.”

“So...Washington?” Dina asked. “Maybe Seattle? Spokane? Walla Walla?”

Finally, Ellie located a miniature box of cereal. The bright colors on the box were faded, and the expiration date passed before she was born, but food was food. She ripped into the box and the bag inside, and stuffed a handful of the sugary mess in her mouth. Not too stale. She’d be fine. “Or maybe the W is for Winnipeg. Or Wisconsin. Or maybe they’re Western Louisiana Farmers. Or they found the jackets in a storeroom somewhere.”

Dina rolled her eyes. She and Ellie met at the end of an aisle of shelves, and Dina took a handful of Ellie’s cereal. “Wishful Lion Fighters,” Dina said through a mouthful of cereal.

Ellie laughed. “Woeful Legion of Frogs.”

“Wives of Left-handed Firefighters.

“Wanda Lee Fans.”

“Who’s Wanda Lee?” Dina asked. 

Ellie shrugged. “She’s a farmer from western Louisiana.” Dina punched her arm. 

“Gotta tell Joel about them when we get back. Unless he runs into them out there, but I doubt it. He and Jesse oughtta be way up in the mountains by now, right?” 

“Should be,” Ellie said. The Northwest lookout was a few hours’ ride away, and Abby and Nora seemed like they were on foot. At least, Ellie hadn’t seen any other horses nearby.

Ellie and Dina picked through the remaining shelves. There were a lot of canned goods they’d send a crew after when the weather was better and they could get a cart out there. Dina stashed away packs of freeze-dried fruits and protein bars. Ellie found a neat little action figure and three shotgun shells that she could use. That was a great thing about Wyoming: They had gun supplies everywhere--grocery stores, gas stations, most houses. Maria, who lived in Wyoming before the Outbreak, said that everyone had a gun for hunting or warding off the wildlife. Jesse’s mom, who lived in California pre-Outbreak, said people from Wyoming were right-wing gun nuts. Ellie was grateful nonetheless.

“You know what?” Ellie said as they climbed through the shattered window back into the fresh, freezing air outside. After being in that grocery store with all those Infected, the smell of death outside didn’t seem as bad. A mild annoyance where it had once been nauseating. The wind had picked up, which maybe helped dissipate the stench. “I hope Jesse and Joel do run into those women, so Joel can kick their asses and get my damn gun back.”

“They took your gun?” Dina said with surprise.

“Yeah, the big one fell on it. Now I’ve got her piece of shit,” Ellie said, holding up the 9mm pistol she’d taken from Abby. “Jammed on me. Nearly got me killed.”

“Is that what happened? I thought you’d miscounted your ammo,” Dina said. “You’re welcome, by the way. For saving your ass, I mean. Remember when I did that?”

Ellie sighed. It had been a long time since she’d been on patrol with Dina--since they both were still doing group patrols, years ago. She’d forgotten how gloaty Dina got. It was even worse than when she won board games or footraces. “Pretty sure I killed way more Infected than you did in there. Plus I got the kill shot on the Bloater.”

Dina lightly kicked at Ellie’s shin. “Yeah, after I shot off the fungus armor on its head! And at least all of my shots hit.”

“All my shots hit!” Ellie said defensively. She didn’t miss shots. Especially not against a massive target like a Bloater, and with a shotgun.

Dina shook her head. “Your second shot missed. Hit the wall.”

“You’re full of shit,” Ellie said, hoping she at least appeared to be keeping her cool.

“Oh, do you wanna go back in there and check?” Dina taunted. Ellie knew she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t make herself look even more competitive than Dina. But damn, she was sure she hadn’t missed a shot. 

Luckily, she didn’t have to answer, as they had reached the horses. Or, horse.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Dina said, staring at the tether, still tied to the bike rack where she’d left it, now cut and dangling to the ground, horseless.

“Fucking thieves,” Ellie muttered. They stole a gun  _ and  _ a horse? “At least they took the one that shits more.”

Dina glared at her. “Not the time for a rare morsel of Ellie-optimism. I’ve been riding Japan since I was 14.”

“I’ve been riding Shimmer since I was 14,” Ellie said.

“I’m older than you,” Dina said. 

“Yeah, well…” Ellie nearly countered that she was taller than Dina, as well as smarter, a better shot, faster on foot, better at poker, and more knowledgeable about the geography of the Western United States--some of which were true claims, and some of which were somewhat exaggerated--but she sensed that Dina wasn’t in the mood to continue their competitive banter. “It sucks. I’m sorry.”

Dina shrugged her shoulders. “Just hope Joel and Jesse cross them and kick their asses so we can get our stuff back.”

“As if Jesse would help out. He’d be too distracted fan-boying watching Joel beat them up,” Ellie said. Making fun of Jesse was always a safe bet for conversation with Dina, no matter the mood. “You should have seen him this morning when Maria told him to patrol with Joel. Nearly pissed himself.”

Dina smirked. Ellie untied Shimmer’s reins, her fingers fumbling with the cold leather. It felt colder now than it was less than an hour ago. The snow was falling harder. Dina brushed the snow off Shimmer’s saddle and hopped on. Ellie went to mount the horse in front of Dina, but Dina stopped her. “What’re you doing?”

“This is my horse, I figured I’d steer,” Ellie said.

Dina shook her head, her brows drawn together. “You don’t even know the route.”

“I figured we would head back to town? Maria will want to know about the strangers.” Maria did not like strangers. Ellie knew firsthand how Maria reacted to new folks who showed up in Jackson. 

“No way we’d make it with the snow coming down like this. We need to head to the next lookout,” Dina said with finality. Ellie wanted to argue, but the look in Dina’s eyes suggested that wasn’t the best idea. Ellie sighed, and hopped onto the horse behind Dina, lightly gripping the sides of her vest. 

“You’re seriously gonna grip like that? You’ll fall off as soon as we start moving,” Dina said, turning her head a bit so Ellie could see her face. Ellie moved her hands a bit, improving her grip marginally. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Dina muttered. She grabbed Ellie’s hands, wrapping them around her torso in a bear hug. Ellie swallowed a large lump in her throat.

They rode on for the next lookout. Ellie’s arms were stiff, and she closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, making sure it didn’t get too ragged. She felt oddly warm, and a little lightheaded. 

It was nearly silent as they rode. Hooves in the snow, Dina’s leg shaking in the stirrup, which her foot was only very loosely in, and their breathing, which was nearly synchronized. Ellie took slightly deeper breaths. Dina’s were shallower and slower. 

Ellie thought about Salt Lake. She didn’t remember a whole lot. She remembered the giraffes--so much bigger than she’d ever imagined they could be. She remembered tunnels with a lot of Infected. She remembered arriving at the hospital, and putting on that flimsy, scratchy hospital gown, and falling asleep from the anesthesia as the doctor counted down from ten. And then, she remembered waking up in the backseat of the car as Joel drove through the desert, silent but for the labored sounds of the car’s engine. Her head hurt. Joel’s fingers tapped on the steering wheel. She was still wearing that awful gown. It didn’t close all the way, and her bare ass was on the car seat. She felt groggy. She asked Joel what happened, and he looked back at her and sighed. She remembered so vividly what he’d said:

“We found the Fireflies. Turns out, there's a whole lot more like you, Ellie. People that are immune. It's dozens actually. Ain't done a damn bit of good neither. They've actually... They've stopped looking for a cure. I'm taking us home.”

The words hurt. They’d spent all that time, gone through so much to get to the Fireflies in Salt Lake; they’d nearly died on innumerous occasions, and they’d gone up against so many foes--they’d killed so many people, and lost so many of their own--for nothing. Ellie thought all of their losses, all of their sacrifices, would be worth it once they got to the hospital. There was supposed to be a cure. Her immunity was supposed to mean something.

But it didn’t. That’s what Joel said. She thought about what Abby and Nora said on the rooftop, though. Something happened to the Fireflies in Salt Lake City. Something bad. Ellie was almost scared to wonder what that something was. 

One thing was for sure: She needed to talk to Joel. Maybe he knew what happened in Salt Lake. If he did, though, why hadn’t he told her?

And why were those women looking for him?

“It’s cold as shit,” Dina said. Ellie could barely hear her. At some point while Ellie was spaced out, the wind had started howling. The snow was practically a blizzard now. All Ellie could see was Dina right in front of her and Shimmer’s body below them. She couldn’t feel her face or fingers. Why hadn’t she brought gloves? She knew it was cold out. But Jesse was rushing her to get ready, and she was still frazzled and hungover from the night before. Stupid. 

“Should we turn back?” Ellie said. She wasn’t even sure how far they’d gone from the grocery store. Fuck, she didn’t want to go back to the smelly-ass grocery store.

“We wouldn’t make it. We’re almost to the next town,” Dina said, practically shouting. The wind was yelling. Shimmer whinnied her discontent. Ellie would remember to give her some extra attention when they got back to town. A nice brushing, some extra snacks. She deserved it. 

Then Shimmer stumbled. The ground was pure ice. Ellie tightened her grip on Dina, suppressing the nervous feeling in her gut that a tight grip on Dina was causing. The wind roared. Shimmer stumbled again, and Ellie slipped halfway off the horse’s back.

Ellie shouted. “Fuck!” Dina’s hand fumbled behind her back, trying to grab hold of Ellie. Ellie grabbed at Dina’s coat— _ vest—coat...vest...coat-vest, vest-coat, what a stupid fucking piece of clothing _ —but the snow made the coat slippery and wet, and Ellie’s hands were too frozen to be very dextrous. Her finger snagged into Dina’s pocket, and Ellie pulled, trying to right herself on the horse. She heard a tear, and her hand fell. Dina would be very mad about that later.

“Ellie, hold on!” Dina shouted. Dina was still trying to grab Ellie, without letting go of the horse’s reins. “Just—grab my hand!”

Dina’s hand shot out, and Ellie grabbed onto it with both of her own. Dina pulled up, and Ellie started to slide back onto the saddle. Then the horse whinnied loudly, and stumbled again on the ice. Ellie was again jolted to the side, barely remaining on the saddle now. Dina grabbed at her again, but most of Ellie’s body weight was hanging off the horse, and she could hardly reach up. 

“Fucking hell,” Dina said exasperatedly. With both hands now, she held Ellie’s arm and tried pulling her up. The horse jolted. The grip Ellie had managed to maintain on the horse with her leg was done. Ellie fell to the ground. Dina, with both hands on Ellie and neither holding the reins, fell with her, landing mostly on top of Ellie.

Shimmer ran. After a few seconds, they could no longer hear nor see her. The snow was too heavy. They lay in the snow, which had mostly broken their falls. 

“Well fuck. You alright?” Dina asked, still resting her head on Ellie’s stomach, where she’d fallen.

Ellie sighed. “My ass hurts.” Dina laughed.

“Can you walk?” Dina stood up, fruitlessly brushing snow off of herself.

“Not many other options,” Ellie said. Dina reached out a hand, and Ellie grabbed it to pull herself up.

Dina shrugged. “Could always lay here and die,” she said, giving Ellie a hard pat on the back.

“I thought we agreed to die of old age.”

Dina pointed a finger at her and squinted. “Don’t you forget it.”

They walked. Ellie crossed her arms over her torso and tucked in her hands. She pulled her hood up a couple of times, but the wind kept blowing it back, so she left it. Her body was doubled over, to conserve heat. Her teeth chattered.

Dina walked a bit in front, guiding the way as well as she could. All they could see was white. They couldn’t even see a tree until it was a foot in front of them. 

“Watch out,” Dina yelled back at Ellie. “There’s a cliff nearby. Try not to trip.”

Ellie promptly tripped. Her foot snagged on a tree root, and she toppled over, sliding over the snow uncontrollably, and diving over the cliffside. She landed in a large mound of snow. It still hurt like a bitch. She tried to stand, but couldn’t find her footing. The snow was deep, and still coming. Then she heard it—shrieking. Horrible shrieking. Runners. She yelled for Dina, but doubted Dina could hear her.

She scrambled to get up and get hold of her shotgun, but it was fully underneath her and she struggled to roll enough to dig it out of the snow. Hands grabbed her ankle. She looked up, meeting the eyes of a runner. Middle aged guy. Torn overalls. Farmer, maybe. Its eyes were yellowy, its skin pale and torn, its teeth gray and bloody. Ellie kicked its head with her free leg, and it released her, but immediately threw itself down onto her. Its breath was searing hot against Ellie’s frozen skin. She pushed it away, but it was strong, and she was tired and fucking cold. She sneezed. The Runner clawed at her neck, tearing the hood of her jacket with its jagged nails. She reached for her knife in her pocket, and the Runner grabbed her arm. With her other arm, she punched it in the head.  _ Ow _ . Its head was hard. But its grip loosened, and she reached her knife, gripping the cold metal handle hard as she raised it and stabbed the Runner in the neck, twisting the knife and pulling to slit its throat. Blood spilled on her face. She closed her eyes and mouth as hard as she could, and blew from her nose to make sure it didn’t get in her nostrils. 

The fucker was dead. She pushed it off her, and tried again to stand. It was very slippery, and her ankle hurt bad. She slowly moved her foot in a circle. Not broken, probably just twisted. Still painful, but at least she’d be able to walk. Standing up would be a struggle. She rolled over onto her stomach, pushed her upper body off the ground, tucked her knees under herself, and rolled back so her feet were on the ground. She grabbed her shotgun off her shoulder and used it like a cane to steady herself. She heard more shrieking. 

Ellie was mad. She couldn’t see a thing. She didn’t know where Dina was. There was blood freezing onto her face. Her ankle, ass, and head hurt bad. She couldn’t feel her fingers or her face. And there were more fucking Runners. 

She saw a vague dark blob in the mess of snow. She heard shrieking. She aimed at the blob and fired. It toppled.

Ellie backed up towards the wall of the cliff. She couldn’t venture out further from the cliffside without getting even more severely lost. She really hoped Dina would find her soon. 

Another Runner appeared just a yard from her. She hadn’t even heard it coming with the fucking wind howling like it was. This was a big guy. Its arms could almost reach her from a yard away. Ellie stepped forward, and with the butt of her gun, whacked it in the side of the head. Before it could recover, she flipped around her shotgun, put the barrel under its chin, and fired. Its brains splattered. She felt a few chunks hit her.  _ Gross _ . She wiped her face with her sleeve, which only seemed to smear the blood over more of her face. 

From the other direction, she heard yelling—not shrieking. She really, really hoped it was Dina. If it was another stranger, she’d scream. 

“Ellie!” She definitely heard her name. Thank fuck. She saw a figure not too far away. Another blob neared this figure. Ellie started to line up a shot, but the figure quickly shot the blob and kept walking towards Ellie. “Ellie, I swear to god, is that you?”

Ellie breathed a deep sigh of relief. “Dina! Yes! Over here!” The figure became more Dina-shaped as it drew near. Soon enough, Ellie could make out Dina’s dishelved, curly black hair, and that stupid fucking coat-vest. “Took you long enough.”

“No one told you to fall off a cliff, dumbass,” Dina said. “Oh my god, how many did you kill?” She must have noticed the blood that covered Ellie’s face and neck.

“Three. Stabbed one in the neck while it was on top of me,” Ellie explained.

“You clean? Are you hurt?” Dina asked. She fingered the tear in Ellie’s jacket. Her face held concern.

Ellie swallowed. “Clean. Twisted my ankle in that fall though.” Walking was a pain. Standing was a pain. Her elbow still hurt from her fall with Abby earlier. She just wanted to go home.

“You need to stop all this damn falling. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve got some bruised ribs,” Dina said.

“Bruised ribs are a myth,” Ellie replied. Dina punched her arm.

Dina shook her head. “Idiot. Come on, we have to get out of this snow.”

“No kidding.”

Dina grabbed Ellie’s sleeve, and dragged her forward. At the very least, she acted like she knew where she was going. Ellie limped along behind her, and Dina did not let go of Ellie’s sleeve. This was probably for the best. 

The snow was still getting worse. Luckily, they were walking with the wind, which certainly made it easier—though every now and again an especially strong gust threatened to knock them over. When the wind finally did topple Dina, forcing her to let go of Ellie’s sleeve, Ellie extended her hand to help Dina up. Dina took it, pulled herself up, and now clung to Ellie’s hand to drag her along. Ellie wished her hand wasn’t completely numb. 

“Jesus Christ, your hands are freezing,” Dina said as they clambered over a small hill. “Did you not bring gloves?”

“I was very rushed this morning,” Ellie said defensively. Dina shook her head heavily. 

A building loomed before them. Ellie couldn’t really make out anything about it, other than the fact that it was one story and would hopefully provide ample shelter. They found the door, which was barricaded. Ellie was fucking exhausted. She did not want to wander around the building looking for another entrance. She could barely see anything. She rammed her whole body against the door, shoulder first. It opened just a bit. Dina joined her, and on the count of three they both rammed the door. After a few times, it opened enough for them both to shimmy inside, wriggling around the furniture that blocked the way. 

It was still cold inside, but much, much less cold than outside. Ellie didn’t see any holes in the ceiling or walls, which was rare. There were some plastered spots on the walls, where they had been repaired. Someone was taking care of this place.

“You been here?” Ellie asked. She didn’t think Dina would have harbored a secret spot from the rest of the town. 

“Rode by it. Never came inside.” Figured. Who was doing repairs, then?

Ellie walked through an archway into the larger room of the building. There were shelves upon shelves of books throughout the room. A tattered couch and table against one wall, and a few wooden table and chair sets on the other. It was a library. Ellie was excited. 

“Let’s make sure it’s clear,” Ellie said. She sure hoped it was clear. She’d met enough Infected today, and between Abby’s broken pistol and her own shotgun, she only had one shot to take. 

They split up and searched. Ellie didn’t hear any clicking, moaning, groaning, or other Infected noises. That didn’t mean they were in the clear, though; there could be Stalkers lurking about. Quiet bastards.

Ellie looked back towards Dina, who was standing against the wall with the ragged couch. Dina raised her fist. Clear. Ellie did the same. No Infected in this room. Dina walked over. Ellie set her bag on a table and dug out a mostly-clean rag, finally wiping the blood off her face. Some of it was frozen on, and she had to pick it off like ice. She tossed the rag back in her bag.

There was a door on this side of the room. The door had a window, but it was dark on the other side. Ellie tried the door handle. It was very much locked. 

“How are we gonna get in there?” Dina said just over Ellie’s shoulder. 

Ellie looked at the ground, and saw a loose brick in surprisingly good condition. She picked it up, shrugged at Dina, and threw it through the window on the door. Dina clapped. 

“Sure fuckin’ hope there are no Infected back there,” Dina said.

Ellie reached through the window, fumbled for the door handle, and unlocked it. “It sounds like we’re clear.” Ellie opened the door, and clicked on the flashlight attached to her backpack strap. Inside this room were half a dozen computers, busted open and picked apart. “What’s going on here?”

“All this electronics stuff?” Dina said, picking stuff off the table and examining it. “Has to be Eugene’s.”

“You sure?” Ellie asked. She found another door. This one had no window.

Dina jingled a set of keys she’d picked up off the desk. “Nobody else would tinker with this shit. But why would he hide it from me?” Dina tossed Ellie the keys. 

There were probably a dozen keys and trinkets on the key ring. One by one, Ellie tried the keys in the door. As she did so, she examined the keychains linked on. One was a Firefly pendant, she quickly realized. One side showed the familiar Firefly symbol, the long, thick lines that sort of looked like a firefly, Ellie supposed, if you were really trying to make it work. The other side read EUGENE LINDEN - 000314. Ellie thought it was so ambitious that the Fireflies’ member numbers were six digits. As if they were going to reach 100,000 members. Ellie doubted there were more than a few thousand at a time. 

And now there were none.

“Definitely Eugene’s place,” Ellie said, holding up the pendant. “He was a Firefly?”

Dina nodded, and slowly walked towards Ellie. “He served with Tommy.” She took the keys from Ellie. Ellie nodded, and sat on the desk.

“I—I had no idea.”

Dina picked a key, slammed it into the door handle, and got it right on the first try. The door opened. “Yeah, they uh, got into some dark shit.”

“Like what?” Ellie asked. Eugene didn’t seem the type. The man told dirty jokes and sneaked teenagers beer and fixed everyone’s electronics when they got busted. He was mostly just a benevolent menace to Maria.

“Said he blew up a checkpoint at the Denver QZ. Killed three soldiers,” Dina said. “And two civilians.”

Ellie sighed. “Oh jeez.” Ellie followed Dina through the door. Even more electronics junk in this room. Tools and circuit boards and wires were strewn all about the tables that lined the walls. There were TVs, computers, DVD players, radios, and more cracked open, their parts spilling onto the tables and floors. It smelled like a family of skunks died in the walls. 

“He also told me that he and Tommy slow tortured some big FEDRA general. I dunno about that one. I don’t buy Tommy doing that.”

Ellie shrugged. “He could do worse.” Dina gave her an inquisitive look. “He and Joel...did a lot to survive after the Outbreak.” Joel never liked to tell her much about what he did before they met in Boston. She knew he was a smuggler. She knew he worked with bounty hunters. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what all that entailed.

“Think that’s why Abby and Nora are looking for him?” Dina asked. 

“They seemed pretty young, right?” Ellie said. She pulled a photo from a corkboard, and dusted it off to look at it. Her eyes widened. There was Tommy, his hair longer, his face much less lined, wearing a t-shirt and holding a big gun. And next to him must have been Eugene. The same tattoos covered his hands, but his face was so much younger, his hair long and shaggy, his beard long and unkempt. There was a semi-automatic rifle across his chest, and a Firefly emblem on his sleeve. This picture must have been fifteen years old, at least. 

“That’s true. Whatcha got there?” Dina said, indicating the photo.

Ellie held up the photo. “Tommy and Eugene. They look like...babies.” Eugene looked about Joel’s age. Still old as fuck, but...god. Much younger than Ellie had ever known him.

“Oh wow,” Dina said, taking the photo. “Eugene always told me he was quite a looker back in the day. I see now that he was full of shit.” Ellie laughed.

They rummaged through the room. Ellie found a stack of DVDs to pick through.

“Ellie, look at this,” Dina said from across the room. She was standing by a generator, which had been covered by a sheet Dina now tossed away. It was a big ass generator. Ellie thought it was weird that such a powerful generator was out here, rather than back in Jackson. That was Eugene, though. “I’m gonna try to get it started.”

Ellie nodded, and continued picking through the DVDs until she found one with a title she remembered Joel mentioning.  _ Home Alone _ . He told her once that she reminded him of the little boy from the movie. She hadn’t known how to take it then, but maybe now she could watch the movie and see for herself whether it was a compliment. She opened the case to make sure the DVD was inside, and a piece of paper fluttered to the ground.

She crouched to pick it up and read it. Her heart sank. In tall cursive letters, she read:

> _ Eugene- _
> 
> _ I'm begging you to come home! _
> 
> _ The Fireflies want to save the world - I say let them. Let them go after the military, the politicians. Let them develop a vaccine to save mankind. Maybe one day we'll live to see the fruits of their fantasies. Until then, I have to put your daughter first. _
> 
> _ The Fireflies will be fine without you. Your daughter won't. She keeps asking me when you're coming home. I can't lie to her anymore. _
> 
> _ I miss you. But I don't know how much more of this I can take. _
> 
> _ Come home. Please. _
> 
> _ We love you. _
> 
> _ Claire _

Ellie couldn’t believe it. She didn’t know he had a family--or that he left them to join the Fireflies. And it was all for nothing. Eugene was dead, and here they were. No vaccine, no cure, no Fireflies.

Suddenly the lights flickered on. Ellie looked back at Dina, who looked proud of herself. Then she saw the look on Ellie’s face, and her smile dropped. “What’s that?”

“A note from Eugene’s wife. You know he had a daughter?” Ellie said, holding out the note for Dina.

Dina nodded grimly. “He didn’t talk about her much. I never knew what happened to her.” Dina skimmed over the note, and clicked her teeth. “Shit, maybe he didn’t either.” Dina tucked the note into her pocket.

Ellie shrugged. She looked at her feet--and noticed light coming through the floorboards. “You see that?” she said, nudging Dina.

“Oh, hello?” Dina said. “How do we get down there?”  _ And what the hell could be down there? _ Ellie thought.

They looked for a way down. There were no more doors in this room, no windows, no trapdoors they could see. Dina noticed some scratches on the floor, underneath a bookcase. “Help me with this?” Ellie pushed one end, while Dina pulled from the other. The bookcase slid across the floor quite loudly, and revealed a staircase leading down. Dina lead the way.

“What’s he got down here?” Dina muttered.

“Obviously it’s a sex den,” Ellie said. Her heart wasn’t in the joke.

Dina laughed. “I hope it’s a sex den, for his sake.” The staircase ended, and they entered a brightly lit room. “Holy fuck.”

Ellie’s eyes widened. “It’s...weed,” she said slowly. “It’s a lot of dead weed.” A  _ lot _ . Tables stretched across the room, covered in dry, brown marijuana plants. Dozens. Maybe a hundred. Above the plants were large heat lamps, which now burned fiercely. There were a few shelves along the walls that held watering cans, bags of soil, paraphernalia, and some books. There was a couch in the corner. At the far wall, there was a door with a window that showed the bleak white landscape outside. That must be how Eugene usually got in, then, rather than busting through the barricaded door upstairs. 

“This explains a lot,” Dina said. 

“Maria would lose her shit if she saw this place,” Ellie said. Maria did not like it when she saw the people in Jackson smoking weed. She said it slowed the reflexes and killed off brain cells. Jesse’s mom said Maria was a right-wing conservative snob. 

Dina touched one of the dead plants, and it crumbled. These plants had been left alone for months—since Eugene died. “I wish he’d told me about this. I could’ve helped out.” And then Jackson would still have a supply of weed, and they wouldn’t all have to ration the remaining joints they had left. Supplies were dwindling fast. 

Ellie rummaged around some of the shelves around the room. There was a gas mask fitted with glass piping and some metal instruments. “This is a gas mask bong,” Ellie announced. 

“God, he was so smart.” Dina, still picking around the tables of deceased plants, lifted a jar above her head. “Aha!”

Ellie walked over and took the jar. It was full of rolled joints. “You think it’s still good?”

Dina shrugged. “Does weed go bad?”

How the fuck was Ellie supposed to know? She twisted the lid. It didn’t budge. She twisted harder. Nothing. She found a cloth on the table and used it for grip. The lid still would not open.

“Let me see it,” Dina said with her hand outstretched.

“Oh, really?” Ellie said, handing her the jar. “You think you’re stronger?”

Dina smirked. “Nope.” She dropped the jar on the floor, and it shattered, glass shards spewing everywhere. Ellie watched it drop, stared at the damage, then looked back up at Dina, whose smirk was now even wider.

Ellie shook her head. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Dina picked a joint off the ground and brought it to her face to sniff it. She shrugged, and handed it to Ellie. Ellie could hardly smell at the moment, her nose totally stuffed. It was fucking cold out. But Ellie wanted to smoke this weed, so she shrugged. “Smells good.”

“We’re gonna be stuck here a while, right?” Dina said mischievously. Ellie grinned.

“Totally trapped.” Ellie retrieved her lighter from her pocket, lit the joint, and took the first hit. It seemed fine. She handed it to Dina, and sat on the couch. Dina sat beside her, took a hit, and handed the joint back to her. 

Ellie felt much more relaxed. She didn’t know if it was the weed acting quickly, or just the relaxing atmosphere, and the knowledge that the calm was coming. It didn’t matter. She thought less now of Eugene, Joel, or the women on the roof, and much more of Dina, who unzipped and tossed away her stupid fucking coat-vest, landing it on top of a dead plant and under the roaring heat lamps. Ellie did the same with her jacket, and wondered if she should toss her hoodie as well. It was soaked. But underneath the hoodie she only wore a tank top, and she wasn’t quite relaxed enough for that outfit.

Dina reached out for the joint, took it from Ellie, and took a long hit. “You know Jesse only started growing out his hair because Joel was doing it?” she said, laughing.

“Is that why he grew out that awful beard last year?” Ellie asked, taking the joint back. She hated that stupid beard. It was patchy and made Jesse look way older than he was. He only shaved the whole thing off when Ellie and Dina had had too much of it and shaved a line down each cheek while he was sleeping. He cut a chunk of hair from both of their heads in retaliation.

Dina nodded, still laughing. “God I hated that thing. All scratchy and gross. I maybe kissed him twice the whole time he had it.”  _ Twice as many times as you’ve kissed me,  _ Ellie thought. It wasn’t fair to feel bitter about that, Ellie knew. Jesse was Dina’s boyfriend then, and Ellie was just...Ellie.

She thought of what it’d been like the night before. The fairy lights she and Jesse had helped set up all around the church gave the room an ambient glow. A few people from town were playing music, Tommy on the guitar. There were so many people all around the room, chattering and dancing and drinking, and then there was Dina. Radiant. 

Ellie looked at Dina now. After all the bullshit they’d been through today, she didn’t care enough anymore to stop herself from staring. What was the point? It’s not like Dina didn’t know. Everyone probably knew--especially after last night. She wasn’t fooling anyone. She was Ellie, and Dina was Dina.

Ellie felt oddly emboldened. Maybe it was the weed, or the stress, or the way Dina’s shirt was all wet and clinging tightly to her skin—who could say. Ellie took a hit, and with the joint still between her fingers, and with her eyes glued to it, she asked, “Do you miss being with him?”

“Jesse?” Dina laughed, and took the joint. “No.” Ellie rolled her eyes. “No, look, Jesse’s...great. I love his parents. They’ll always be family. But...we were just on autopilot.”

Ellie softly nodded. She knew that feeling. She’d dated Cat for—fuck, how long? She couldn’t even remember. It didn’t matter. After the first few months, Ellie just...didn’t care anymore. But things were going fine, they didn’t fight, they had similar interests. They’d spend time together, talk about their days, sit in silence, go to sleep. And then one day Cat told Ellie that she loved her, and Ellie just...didn’t.

“What about Cat?” Dina asked. “You never talked about her.”

Ellie laughed, a bit bitterly. “Not much to talk about.”

“ _ Ouch _ ,” Dina said playfully.

“I just—I got the impression you didn’t really like her.”

Dina shrugged. “I didn’t care about her one way or the other.”

Ellie rolled her sleeves up. It was getting warm in there with all the lamps burning. “Okay,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“No, I—I think she’s a talented artist. I’ve grown to like that tattoo of yours,” Dina said, nodding towards Ellie’s forearm. Ellie looked at her own tattoo—a moth, shrouded by ferns on either side. The same moth that was on Ellie’s guitar from Joel. One branch was the ferns that grew just outside the gates of Jackson, where Ellie and Cat and the others used to sneak off to get high during community meetings. The other branch was an approximation of the ferns Ellie remembered growing all over the place in Boston. The shading was delicate—it hurt like hell when Cat was tattooing her, and Ellie decided that the Boston fern didn’t need to be shaded in. Towards the top of the tattoo was her scar. The chemical burn. The bite mark. 

“How big of you,” Ellie said. She handed the joint back to Dina. She didn’t even remember if she’d taken a hit this time. 

Dina shrugged. “And...I don’t think she was right for you.”

“Interesting.” Dina wasn’t the first to say it. She remembered Joel dancing around the subject more than once. Tommy told it to her straight up one time after a few beers. People thought Cat was too dramatic for Ellie. Too immature. Ellie kind of thought the same.

For a bit they sat on the couch in silence, passing the joint back and forth. Dina took her hair out of its completely disheveled bun, ran her fingers through it a few times, and tied it back up. Ellie watched quite intently. Her mouth was dry.

Dina noticed Ellie watching and met her eyes, smirking. “Can I ask you a question?” Dina asked.

Ellie shuttered. “I don’t know, can you?” Dina lightly kicked her.

Dina’s face was...difficult to read. Ellie wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“Scale of one to ten,” Dina said slowly, “with one being absolute trash, and ten being...life-altering…” Dina looked at Ellie to make sure she was following along. Ellie nodded. “How would you rate our kiss from last night?”

Ellie’s face went bright red. She looked down at her lap, studying the stitches on her jeans. Her heart was beating very fast. She was sure Dina could hear it. She took a long hit from the dwindling joint. “Why are we still talking about this?” Ellie said quietly. “You said it was a mistake.”

Dina feigned confusion. “Did I say that?”

Didn’t she? Ellie wracked her brain trying to remember everything Dina had said about it. Ellie was sure she’d said it. “What are you doing?” Ellie asked. Was she  _ trying  _ to fuck with Ellie’s head? She didn’t think Dina was mean enough to do that.

“I asked you to rate our kiss,” Dina said firmly.

This was a loaded question. How the fuck was Ellie supposed to answer that? If she said ten, the game was up. She’d be admitting everything. 

But if she said one, Dina would know she was lying out her ass. “I don’t know.”

Dina smirked. “I’d give it a six.”

Bullshit. “A six?” Ellie said. She was offended. She didn’t care to hide it.

“Like a solid six,” Dina repeated. Ellie shook her head. “There were a lot of people around.” 

“Yeah, but, a six?” Ellie was sure she was a better kisser than that, even if she had been a little drunk. And nervous. And caught off-guard.

Dina raised an eyebrow. “What? Now I really wanna know how you’d rate it.”

Ellie wouldn’t meet Dina’s eyes. She was mortified. “I don’t think you do.” Dina brought her hand to Ellie’s chin and made Ellie look at her.

“You’re infuriating,” Dina said, smiling.

Ellie shook her head. “Have you met you?”

Dina leaned toward Ellie.  _ What the fuck is happening?  _ Ellie thought. Her heart was beating like fucking crazy. It hurt. Ellie was very aware of every part of her body—her aching elbow, her throbbing ankle, her bruised tailbone, her fingers drumming against her leg with nervous energy. Dina looked directly into her eyes.

“You make me want to go back outside into that blizzard,” Dina said softly. She bit her lip. Ellie leaned in just a bit. She couldn’t help it. 

“No one is stopping you,” Ellie said slowly. She barely even heard herself. Her eyes fixated on Dina’s lips. She suddenly realized how dry her own were. She tried to subtly lick her lips. She was positive it was not subtle at all.

Dina leaned in closer. Ellie could feel her breath. Very warm. It smelled like mint. Was this fucking happening? Ellie was shaking. 

Fuck it. Fuck it. What was there to lose? Ellie leaned in, and rested one hand on Dina’s cheek. Just before their lips met, Dina laughed. “This better be better than a six.”

It was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not writing smut. this ain't that kinda story.
> 
> chapter was kind all over the place. weirdly action heavy. i semi-enjoy writing action but i do not think it's my forte. feedback appreciated here on what works and what doesn't.
> 
> i used to write notes about all the things i changed from the game in each chapter, but i don't think i'll be doing that. you folks have played the game. you know the deal.
> 
> anyways, thoughts comments questions concerns. i feed on them.


	6. Muffled

Abby did not like heights. Abby had never liked heights. As a child, she would refuse to climb trees with the other kids, wouldn’t race them on the monkey bars, wouldn’t play on the tall slide that the rest of the kids fought for turns on. When they were still stationed in Boulder, the kids would sometimes sneak off to a ski lodge not far from the university campus they stayed at. They’d mess around on the slopes, have sword fights with the ski poles, and the older kids would zip line down the ski lift ropes, daring each other to start at points higher and higher up the mountain. Abby did not participate. Her friends would tease and taunt, but never once did she join them, despite their complaints. Nora, two years her junior, would call her a baby and a wimp and a coward. Abby didn’t care. The taunting was better than being up there. She did not like heights.

Her excitement and rage at finding Joel’s girl had helped to stifle her vertigo on the roof. She wasn’t thinking about the height, or the fall. She was thinking about bashing Joel Miller’s brains in. 

But as she fell through the roof, she remembered the height. She remembered something her father had told her years ago, ever the armchair psychologist: “You don’t fear the height, you fear the fall.”

And as she and this other woman tumbled through the air, flipping and flailing, she thought,  _ What a load of bullshit. _ Because at that moment, it was not the fall she feared. It was the impact.

The impact from this fall, as it were, fucking hurt. Her adrenaline did not protect her from feeling this pain. Her back hit first, hard on the tile floor, with some bullshit jabbing into her spine. Her head hit next, bouncing off the floor, and she was suddenly very dizzy. For a moment, she was horrified--all she could see was black. She soon realized her eyes were shut. Opening them helped marginally; she stared up at the sky through the hole she had just fallen through, the edges blurry and the colors looking somehow wrong. Her hearing was muffled. There was a loud pop.  _ Oh god, a bone? _ No, not a bone. She would have felt that for sure. The sting and the bend. No, all Abby felt now was aching. 

More pops. Abby couldn’t count them. Suddenly a weight was removed from her body, and she felt the aching start in her ribs and stomach. Head, back, ribs, stomach. Tailbone. Legs. All of it. The aching. 

And then she heard the yelling, and remembered very suddenly what she had fallen into.

With a lot of effort, Abby rose into a sitting position. It hurt. It hurt even worse than before. Her ears were ringing. She felt the back of her head, and her hand came back red.  _ Shit _ . More yelling--howling. Fucking Runners. Gun gun gun. She needed her gun. She couldn’t see the goddamn ground. Everything was blurry and hazy and fucked. She patted the ground around her. It had to be there somewhere. Her hands found debris, debris, indiscernible puddle, debris--metal. Gun!

Abby did not feel good. Her head throbbed. Movement hurt. Her mind was spinning, and it was hard to put together thoughts. She knew she needed to try. She closed her eyes to concentrate, and discovered that it was much nicer than keeping them open. The pain in her head started fading, and she slowly stopped feeling her body. She could fall asleep. She could just lay there with her eyes closed in the middle of the floor--

_ No! Middle floor bad. _ She couldn’t presently remember why. Some part of her brain urged her to move, so she did. Oh, but it hurt. Shit. Shit it hurt. She dragged her way to a wall and leaned against it. Ouch. Her back did not feel good against the brick. But maybe now she could rest. She leaned her head back, closed her eyes, waiting for the pain to fade again--then she felt a hand on her shoulder, pulling, shaking.  _ Infected! Infected Infected! Shoot gun! _

She fumbled for her gun--the gun--whatever gun. She patted the ground. Not there. She felt her pockets. Not there.  _ Shit shit shit! _

Her hand. It was in her hand. Her eyes shot open, and she looked over her shoulder, where the hand was shaking, and realized before she lifted the gun that it was not one of the Infected pulling at her.

“Abby, look at me,” Nora said. “Look at me, open your eyes, come on.”

Nora was smart. Abby knew she needed to listen to Nora. But she felt so much better with her eyes closed. 

Yelling! Loud loud yelling. Getting louder. Nora cursed. Abby was annoyed. Very loud. Two loud pops, so so close to Abby’s ear, and there was less yelling.

“Abby, get up. Come on. I will fucking kill you if you don’t get off the floor right now.” Nora’s voice was angry. She pulled and pulled at Abby’s arm, but Abby did not want to get up. It hurt. Another pop, quieter. Maybe just further away. The yelling, too, was getting quieter. Abby felt Nora’s hand touch her head. “Fuck. Hold on.” Nora’s hand disappeared, and a moment later Nora held some bit of fabric to Abby’s head. It felt wet. And then it was stinging. Abby hissed and cursed. “Get over it,” Nora muttered.

There were more pops, far away. The yelling stopped. There were still voices. Abby wondered whose voices they were. They sounded like women’s voices. Was Mel there? Fucking Mel. 

There were more noises then. Very, very bad noises. Abby felt that in her gut. Banging, groaning, cracking. 

“Abby, get up! Up up up!” Nora said frantically, her voice a whisper. She pulled and pulled at Abby’s arm, until finally Abby gave in, and she stood. Too fast. Her vision went dark, and she slumped forward. “Don’t do that,” Nora groaned, and put an arm under Abby’s armpits. They remained there for a moment, stationary, waiting for Abby to collect herself. The groaning got so much worse. Loud, loud, loud pops. “Abs, we gotta go!” Nora whispered, and then she was pulling Abby forward, around a blockade of some sort, and with each step Abby found her vision spotting and her hearing fading. There were so many noises happening, though she couldn’t place them. 

Was she moving? She didn’t know she’d been moving. Where was she going? She didn’t want to go anywhere. She wanted to sleep. She was so tired, and her body hurt so bad. And her head. That was the worst of it. The aching, splitting headache. 

A voice in her ear. She couldn’t really understand what it was saying, but it was angry. Why was it angry? Abby was the one whose entire body was in pain. Abby was the one who couldn’t see or hear anything. Abby was the one being dragged across the room--was that why she was moving? She was being dragged? That made more sense. She didn’t think her legs were moving. Maybe she should be moving her legs. She moved her legs, and then the voice in her ear was very happy. That was more pleasant than the angriness. So she moved her legs, and she walked in the direction that the arm under her armpits guided her.

She was pulled forward, and then she was tripping a little bit, and the ground under her feet was crunchy. The voice was back in her ear. Just loud. The arm around her was dragging, dragging, and Abby was no longer really sure whether she was awake or not. There was just a little voice, so loud, resounding in her brain, and she couldn’t tell whether it was coming from inside or outside her head. She concentrated so hard on the voice, trying to understand what it was saying. 

“...horse, Abby. Get on the fucking horse. I swear to god, Abby. Get on the horse or I will beat the shit out of you.”

That didn’t make sense. Abby didn’t have a horse. She and her friends had a car. When was the last time she’d even seen a horse? 

Oh.  _ OH! _ The horse. Bike rack horses. Angry girl. Was it those horses? Why did the voice in her head want her on Angry Girl’s horse? The arm under her pits was pulling upwards, pulling and pulling. The voice was cursing and muttering.  _ Was  _ the voice in her head? She tried to focus on the voice. Her head was swimming. She couldn’t focus on shit. It was annoying. She had thoughts to think.

The arm was gone from her armpits, and then someone was wrapped around her legs, pulling up and up. Abby’s feet left the ground, and then promptly returned. The voice was back in her ear, angry and frantic, and Abby tried to listen.

“Up. Up up up. Get on the horse.”

Abby liked horses. They were like big huge dogs, and Abby  _ loved _ dogs. If the voice wanted her to get on a horse, she’d get on the horse. That sounded like fun. The trouble was, she could not see the horse. Everything was so spotty and blurry. She saw a big black wall in front of her, but the wall was moving, and she couldn’t tell how far away it was. But the arms around her were pushing her up and towards the wall, so she jumped towards it, until her torso hit the wall and she discovered it was hairy and warm. Horse? She put her hands on it. Furry, wet, and moving. Horse. She threw herself over it, as best as she could. It took a few tries. Oh god, was she supposed to ride this thing? Where were the reins? Where was she going? Where the fuck was she? 

A warmth was pressed to the front of her, and then her arms were grabbed and wrapped around whatever was in front of her, and then there was something wrapped around her wrists, and she couldn’t move her hands. That was really annoying, but Abby was much too tired to put up much of a fight. 

The ground started moving. The ground? Abby was sitting down. Why was she sitting down? Why was the ground moving? Abby chanced a look down, and felt sick. The ground was so far away. She felt so high up, and climbing higher the longer she looked. The pristine white ground got smaller and smaller, and the air felt thinner and thinner, and Abby felt like puking. She puked. The ground did not get any closer. It shrank and shrank, and Abby felt the all-too-familiar vertigo setting in. She slammed her eyes shut, but she still saw it, the shrinking white ground. So far away. She had to be so high up. She had to be high enough to break bones, high enough to get concussed. She leaned into the warm mass in front of her, and felt hot tears stream down her face. Abby did not like heights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i kind of really hate this chapter. but i didn't wanna fuck with it anymore. 
> 
> anyways. say goodbye to abby for a while. xoxo


	7. Old Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is mostly a copy-paste from ch 8 of the old fic, for those of you who read that one. some changes. pretty small.

Ellie laid on the couch, her arm tucked around Dina’s shoulders, with Dina laying partially on top of her. She was so warm. Ellie couldn’t remember ever being so comfortable. Her head felt emptier than it had ever been. There was only room for one thought: Dina. 

“That is so much less interesting than I thought it would be,” Dina said, running her thumb across the old scar on Ellie’s eyebrow. 

Ellie rolled her eyes. “Sorry to disappoint.” With her free arm, Ellie ran the palm of her handover Dina’s smooth stomach, stopping at the long scar running just below her waist. “What about this one?” Ellie asked. 

Dina sighed. “When I was twelve, I found a skateboard.” She wanted to leave it at that. Ellie poked her to continue, which she did. “I tried to get on it, and it shot right out from underneath me.” She laughed, and covered her face with embarrassment. Ellie laughed. Dina was cute when she blushed. 

“Wait, so how’d you get the scar?”

Dina closed her eyes. “I fell on my knife.”

Ellie laughed hard. That was fucking funny. Dina punched her arm, but Ellie only laughed harder. Once her laughter subsided, Dina looked up at her, not necessarily expectantly, but with a gently prodding expression. 

Ellie knew it was her turn. She was running out of scars. Her forearm tensed. She twisted her arm so that the scar faced upwards, partly covered by the tattoo, but the scar tissue was still clear, especially this close. “The chemical burn,” she muttered. Dina’s face didn’t change. So gently prodding. “I, uh—I did it myself.” Ellie could only look at the scar. She knew Dina expected more. If she didn’t meet Dina’s eyes, she could claim plausible deniability. 

Or not. “Why?” Dina asked gently. Goddammit. 

She was supposed to lie. She knew she should lie. Joel told her a million times that she should never tell anyone. But what the fuck did Joel know?

_ Joel _ . Ellie very suddenly remembered what the women had said on the roof of the grocery store. Salt Lake. What the hell did he do? Had he lied to her? He had to have lied to her. She always thought something was off about his version of events—he said they left because the doctors said Ellie’s immunity was useless, there were loads of immune people they’d found—if that was true, why did they run the tests on her anyway? Why didn’t Joel wait for her to wake up before they left? She could have changed her clothes, gathered her things. As it was, most of her stuff got left at the hospital. Joel said they could go back for it some time. They never did.

Fuck Joel. Fuck Joel and his lies. She could tell Dina, if she wanted to. 

Fuck,  _ did  _ she want to?

_ Why not? _ she thought.  _ It’s Dina _ . Dina would understand. She should know. Ellie wanted her to know. She wanted  _ someone  _ to know. Someone who wasn’t Joel, or Tommy, or dead. 

She took a deep breath. “To cover a bite mark.” Well, shit, now that was out there. Dina didn’t react. Ellie didn’t know what the fuck that meant. She kept going. “I got jumped by an Infected when I was fourteen.” Still no reaction from Dina. Was she even listening? Ellie had found it hard to listen when Dina was talking about her scars. It took most of her energy to force herself not to just stare at Dina, whose face was so close to her own, and whose body was so uncovered. And her skin was so soft, and her breath smelled amazing, and she felt so warm and heavy, like a weighted blanket, with half of her body laying on top of Ellie’s—

Fuck, even Ellie wasn’t paying attention to her own story. If Dina wasn’t paying attention, then Ellie wasn’t even going to be nervous about telling the truth. “Turns out I’m immune. So it healed with a ring of fucked up teeth marks and cysts and—ow!” Dina punched her in the arm. Again. Ellie was losing count of how many times she’d done that today. 

Dina rolled so she was looking down at Ellie. “Fuck you.” She pinched Ellie’s side. Ellie was confused. “I told you a real fucking story—”

“I did tell you a real fucking story!”

Dina grabbed at Ellie’s jaw playfully. “Oh yeah? You want a bite mark?” Ellie considered the proposition. She was annoyed that Dina didn’t believe her—why would she lie about that? She wanted to convince her that she was telling the truth, but...a bite mark from Dina would not go unappreciated. 

As Dina lowered her head, Ellie leaned her own head back so her neck was well exposed, and she decided that convincing Dina could wait for another day. They’d have time. Ellie was certain of that. 

And then, before Dina’s lips met her skin, the hair on the back of Ellie’s neck stood up, and she abruptly felt very exposed. She gripped Dina’s side. Someone else was there. Dina must have felt it, too, because she rose up so she was seated on the couch, just beside Ellie, and her head turned towards the door. 

Their eyes met. Dina silently mouthed “Did you hear that?” Ellie nodded. There were footsteps outside, crunching in the snow. She listened closely. It was hard to make anything out—the walls were solid, and the wind was still blowing quite heavily outside. The footsteps sounded even. Maybe human. Maybe an animal. Maybe a Stalker. Probably not a Stalker, since it was outside. Were there a few sets of footsteps? They were getting closer. Heavy. Boots. Human. Was it Abby and Nora again? Maybe they were returning the horse and gun they stole. As if.

There was a knock at the door. “Hello?”

_ Fuck! _

Dina’s eyes widened. “Jesse?”

_ Fuck! _

Ellie rolled off the couch and reached for her pants. She grabbed Dina’s by mistake. Where the fuck were her pants? She tossed Dina’s pants over to Dina, who hurriedly pulled them on, with great struggle. They were still wet. Their jackets should be mostly dry by now, having been rested under Eugene’s heat lamps for so long, but they hadn’t had the foresight to take such care when removing their jeans. Their minds had been preoccupied at the moment.

“What the hell are you guys doing in there?” Jesse asked from the other side of the door. It was a good question. 

Dina’s shirt was very much inside out. She noticed, and pulled it off again to correct it. “Just stay out there please!” How inconspicuous. The door, of course, opened. Jesse entered the room, to the sight of Dina, with her jeans unzipped and her shirt halfway on, and Ellie, who still could not find her goddamn motherfucking pants. Her hoodie was well across the room. She was glad to be wearing her tank top and briefs. She was not glad for any other part of the situation. 

“Are you serious?” Jesse muttered. At the very least, he turned around like a true gentleman. Ellie’s face was burning. She had never been so embarrassed in her life. She could not think of a way the current situation could get worse. 

And then it did! “Are they in there?” asked a gruff voice from outside. Ellie froze.  _ Fuck! _

“Stay there!” Ellie shouted. Where the fuck were her pants! She frantically searched the room. Where could they even be? The room was not large, and she had not put a huge effort into throwing them away from the couch. She didn’t think she had, at least. It was a bit of a blur. 

Her pants hit her in the face. Dina had found them under the couch, along with a few socks. Some of them belonged to Ellie and Dina. Some of them were very old and mysteriously crusty. Ellie did her best to ignore that, and pulled on her jeans as quickly as she possibly could. Then her hoodie—fuck, where did her hoodie go? She just saw it. Fuck. 

“Ellie? That you?” Joel shouted from outside. The door began to push open.

Ellie found her hoodie. Dina had grabbed it by accident. It was soaking. The sleeves were inside out and tangled, and the drawstring had knotted itself somehow. Ellie quickly set to fixing it. 

“You’re supposed to be on patrol,” Jesse chastised. 

“There’s a blizzard outside!” Dina said. She was dressed now, save for her coat-vest contraption. 

Jesse shook his head. “People are counting on you!” 

“I can’t control the weather, Jesse!” Dina shouted. She sat down to angrily tie the laces of her boots. Ellie finally unknotted the drawstring and turned the sleeves right-side out.

“That’s not—is that weed?” Jesse said. Ellie cringed. Maybe not their best decision. 

The door pushed open. “Is everything alright in here?” Joel asked, stepping into the room just as Ellie finished pulling her hoodie over her head. She breathed a sigh of relief. At least she spared that embarrassment.

“Why aren’t you at the fucking lookout?” Ellie asked, annoyed. How was Jesse going to yell at Ellie and Dina for not being on patrol when they clearly weren’t either? 

Jesse finally turned around. “Because Tommy never showed up!”

Ellie’s face dropped. “What do you mean?”

Joel stepped towards them. “We waited for an hour. Never showed up. We were lookin’ for his horse when we saw the lights in here.”

“Maybe he just went back to town,” Dina suggested, clearly not convincing even herself.

“Without being replaced?” Jesse said. “No way.” They all knew that. Tommy was the one who always insisted so heavily on following patrol protocols. Maria would kill him if he went back to town early. 

Ellie slipped on her jacket and backpack. “How much of his region have you covered?”

“Not much,” Joel said. He tried to meet Ellie’s eyes. Ellie was not going to give him that. Not until she knew what the hell went down in Salt Lake.

“We should split up,” Jesse said. “Go at it from different sides. We can cover the area in just a few hours.”

Joel shook his head harshly. “Oh, no. You lot are not goin’ out there by yourselves—”

“We’ll be fine on our own,” Ellie said bitterly. Joel did not get to decide what she could or could not handle. 

“We don’t have horses,” Dina said.

“What the hell?” Jesse said.

Dina glared at him. “It’s a long story we clearly don’t have time for.”

“Dina and Jesse, y’all can head around and cover the area west of the river. Ellie, come with me and we’ll check out the east,” Joel said, already walking back out the door.

This morning, the chance to talk with Joel alone for a while was all Ellie wanted. Now, it was just annoying. The only thing she had any interest in talking to Joel about was Salt Lake, and she knew she wasn’t going to get any straight answers out of him while they looked for Tommy.

Her options, though, were not especially desirable. Riding with Joel would leave her angry and likely confused. But Jesse had just found Ellie in a state of undress with his ex-girlfriend in a basement weed den. And Jesus, did she really want Dina and Jesse riding together? They were totally gonna talk about Ellie. What if Dina regretted things with Ellie? What if Jesse and Dina wound up talking it out while riding together and decided to get back together?

Before she had time to properly weigh her options, Dina was rolling her eyes and hopping onto Jesse’s horse, grimacing at him when he condescendingly held out a hand to help her up. So maybe there was nothing to worry about between them.

Ellie holstered her handgun—Abby’s handgun—and slung her shotgun over her shoulder. Not like there was a point to keeping either on her at this point. Abby’s dumb gun was still busted, and she was fully out of ammo. She hoped Tommy was just snowed in somewhere. Ellie wasn’t equipped for a fight. She didn’t have the energy.

Ellie was the last one out the door, and she slammed it shut behind her. She approached Joel’s horse, an angry old stallion Ellie was not excited to get reacquainted with. Before she could mount the old horse, Joel tapped her on the shoulder, his cheeks pink, his eyes pointed at the ground.

Joel gulped. “Your, uh—your shirt is, uh…” he stammered. Ellie looked down. The hood of her sweatshirt hung over her chest. Fuck. Unbelievable. She threw her bag onto the horse’s saddle, handed Joel her shotgun, and flipped around her hoodie, pissed, embarrassed, annoyed, hoping against hope Joel wouldn’t try to discuss it further. 

As she mounted Joel’s horse, Ellie caught Jesse smirking at her, and not for the first time that day, she wished she could kill someone with a glare. Behind Jesse, Dina limply held onto his jacket, and offered Ellie a discomforted smile. Ellie shrugged in response.

Joel hopped onto the horse in front of Ellie, grunting loudly as he settled in. Jesse, evidently, decided he couldn’t let a send-off go by without having the last word.

“Head up the east, we’ll go west, meet at the lookout by midnight,” Jesse said authoritatively. Ellie rolled her eyes.

Joel nodded a farewell to Jesse, and they steered their horses off in opposite directions. Ellie heard Joel humming faintly, and she once again filled in the words in her head. 

_ Well it's all right, even if the sun don't shine _

_ Well it's all right, we're going to the end of the line _

  
  



	8. To the West

The snow still raged, but the wind had died down. The woods were much quieter now. The sounds of the crunching snow, and the occasional rustling of small animals in the trees, filled Ellie’s ears. Every now and again, she would hear Joel humming under his breath. She tried to remember when he picked up the habit. It must have been since they settled down in Jackson. Maybe it was just the serenity in the woods. Maybe if she’d ever seen him at peace for more than a few moments on the way out from Boston, she’d have heard him absently humming then, too.

Her headache was back. Too many thoughts, all pressing against her skull. Dina. What the fuck was all that with Dina? Did it mean the same thing to Dina that it did to Ellie? Were they still gonna hang out tonight? For over a year now, every time romantic thoughts of Dina surfaced, Ellie would repeat the mantra:  _ Don’t fuck up your friendship. Don’t fuck up your friendship. Don’t fuck up your friendship. _ It was hard to imagine that it wasn’t some sort of fucked up now.

And  _ Jesse _ . He hadn’t been mad at her in the morning about her kissing Dina-- _ Dina  _ kissing  _ her _ \--but would he be mad now? After he saw...that? Another friendship fucked up?

And...Joel. Joel, humming away, having no idea what Ellie was mad about this time. Ellie didn’t even know what she was mad about. That was the worst of it. She didn’t even know what he did. And she didn’t know how to ask. What if he really was telling the truth, and Abby and Nora were full of shit? Or maybe he really had nothing to do with whatever happened in Salt Lake. Maybe she was being paranoid. Maybe she was blowing things out of proportion. 

_ It’s Joel _ , she thought.  _ What reason has he ever given me not to trust him? _

The longer they rode on, Ellie grabbing Joel tightly from behind, Joel humming some ancient song, the less angry Ellie felt. She was jumping to conclusions. There was a reasonable explanation for all of it--her weird feelings about Salt Lake, the things the women said on the roof…

But the  _ anger _ in Abby’s voice when she said his name.  _ Joel Miller _ . What could be the explanation for that?

Not knowing was going to kill her.

“We came across some people earlier,” Ellie said nonchalantly, testing the waters.

“Strangers?” Joel asked. 

“Dina and I had never seen them before,” she said. And then, “They knew you, though.”

No reaction. “They say where they’re from?” he asked. 

“Not sure where they stay now, but--”  _ Here it goes. _ “--originally they’re from Salt Lake.”

There it was. His shoulders tensed. His breath hitched, only for a second. Barely noticeable. But Ellie noticed.

Finally, he asked, “What’re they doin’ up here, then?” Healthy curiosity. Didn’t imply anything. Ellie wished she could see his face. 

What  _ were _ they doing up there? “Seemed like they were looking for you.” 

Nothing. An even longer silence than the last one. Never ending. Ellie didn’t like it. Why wasn’t he saying anything? What was he thinking? What did he know? What did he do?  _ Fuck _ , what did he do?

Ellie took a deep breath. “What happened in Salt Lake, Joel?”

Joel’s shoulders kept stiff. “You know what happened in Salt Lake,” he said quietly.

Ellie shook her head. She knew Joel couldn’t see. It didn’t matter. “Why didn’t you wait for me to wake up?” she asked. “Why didn’t you take my stuff? Why haven’t I heard anything from Marlene since then?”

“I said we could go back for your stuff,” Joel argued.

“Then why haven’t we?” Ellie said angrily, louder than she meant to. “It’s been five years, Joel. Why haven’t we ever gone back for my things? Why haven’t we ever met someone else who was immune?”

“They could be hidin’ it--”

“ _ Why? _ ” Ellie practically shouted. “If there are all these people who are immune, and immunity doesn’t mean shit, then why the fuck am I still hiding it?”

“For your protection--”

“Protection from  _ what _ ?” Ellie asked. “Fuck, Joel, I don’t need your fucking protection! Just tell me the fucking truth!”

“Ellie!” Joel said sternly. “Jesus, can we--can we talk about this later?”

_ Later _ . “When exactly is _ later _ ?” Ellie exclaimed. “Later, like you told me we could get my shit from Salt Lake  _ later _ ? We gonna pick up this conversation in five more years?”

Joel sighed. “Later, as in when we’re not searchin’ for my missin’ brother in a snowstorm. How’s that? That work for you? You wanna come over tomorrow and yell at me while I tell you the same shit I’ve been tellin’ you for five years?”

“Or how about you tell me the fucking truth this time!”

“I  _ told  _ you the truth!”

“Why did they know your name, Joel?” Joel shook his head. “They knew your name, and they were  _ pissed.  _ What the fuck did you do?”

“Dammit, Ellie, I--”

A gunshot rang out. Distant. Ellie’s and Joel’s heads turned towards the noise in sync. Joel stopped the horse and held up one finger, and more a moment they were silent, listening. Then two moments. Nothing. 

In a hushed voice, now seeped with adrenaline rather than the anger that had consumed her moments ago, Ellie said, “Not Dina and Jesse.” The gunshot came from the opposite direction. Further west.

Joel nodded in agreement. “Just a few miles out.” His voice was barely above a whisper, as Ellie’s had been. As if anyone would have been able to hear them anyway. 

“What’s out that way?” Ellie asked. 

“A couple small hunting lodges,” Joel said, “and the old Baldwin place.”

Ellie had heard of the Baldwin mansion. Maria and Tommy had declared it off-limits not long after she’d started patrolling. They said it had been picked clean of supplies and the supports were unstable. They said that about a lot of places. Ellie wondered of how many banned buildings that was true, and how many spots were banned just because Maria didn’t want kids to sneak out and party there. 

Ellie rolled her shoulders, casting aside their conversation for another time. Her anger would have to wait. For now, they needed to find Tommy. Gripping again on Joel’s jacket, she said, “Let’s go check it out.”

* * *

The hunting lodge was littered with bodies. Half a dozen Infected surrounded the small cabin, mostly Runners, nearly buried in the snow. Blood tracked across the ground, the floor inside the cabin, the trees and bushes nearby. 

Joel knelt by the body of a Runner just outside the door of the lodge. Its top half leaned against the wall, with a jagged, rusted blade stuck in its eye socket. Its blood was frozen to its face, stuck in the cracked, wrinkled skin, creating icicles in the thinning gray beard. “Jesus,” Joel muttered.

“It’s a fucking bloodbath,” Ellie said, turning in a slow 360 to take in the full view. A Clicker inside the lodge lay in the middle of the floor with a bloodied shard of glass jammed in its throat. The windows of the lodge were busted in—probably by the Infected. A few of the Runners nearby had their heads or chests blown apart by what must have been a shotgun. “Are these all Infected?”

Joel pulled a blade from the eye of the Runner he’d been examining. “Sure looks that way.”

Ellie kicked at a pair of feet sticking out of the snow. A shoe dislodged itself, revealing a rotten, blackened foot. Ellie cringed. “Think it was all Tommy?” Abby and Nora didn’t have shotguns with them. Couldn’t have been them.

“I suppose,” Joel muttered, wandering into the lodge. “Lodge” was a strong word, Ellie thought. It was one small room, with just a table and chairs inside, and a small cabinet whose doors had been busted off. A couple shotgun shells sat on the windowsill, which Ellie quickly loaded into her gun. A large square on the hardwood floor was lighter than the rest, suggesting a mattress was once there, probably carried out and taken back to Jackson at some point. The body of a Clicker half covered a small rug, now soaked with dark blood.

“Now hold on a second.” Joel squinted at a wall, and put his hand to it, waving Ellie over with the other hand. “Ellie, come check this out.” It drove her crazy when he did that. He couldn’t just tell her what he was looking at. He had to show it to her, make her see it for herself. Everything had to be a lesson.

Ellie approached and saw that the wall was littered with bullet holes. They were only centimeters apart from each other, quite small, and went clean through the wall. Ellie could see a limp, yellow hand reaching up from the snow outside. “That’s gotta be semi-auto, right?” They didn’t have guns like that in Jackson. She squinted at a hole and stuck a finger through. No rot around the edges. Had to be recent.

Joel nodded. “These folks you saw earlier,” he said slowly, not trying to stir up their earlier conversation. “They have guns like that?”

Ellie shook her head. Abby and Nora just had their handguns, from what Ellie could tell. “Maybe they’ve got friends.”

Joel ran a hand down his haggard face. “That, or we’ve got another bunch of strangers runnin’ around.”

_ How goddamn fun would that be _ , Ellie thought. “Head to the next lodge?”

“That, or the mansion. If they were running from Infected, they probably went uphill. Mansion’s another half hour west of here, up the mountain.”  _ And into the storm _ , Ellie thought. She could see the wind shaking the trees in the far off mountains to the west. She was tired of the stupid fucking wind and snow and Infected. She wanted to go home. She wanted time to think about Salt Lake. To talk to Joel uninterrupted. She wanted to sleep.

But they had to find Tommy. “To the mansion it is, then.”

* * *

Ellie heard bones cracking under the horse’s hooves. She assumed they were the bones of Infected, but tried not to think on it too much. She focused on Tommy. What the hell had he gotten into? She wasn’t optimistic. What if he did run into more from Abby and Nora’s group? They’d probably have robbed him. Fucking thieves. Fucking assholes. 

“Have you been to this place before”? Ellie asked. She wanted to be prepared. If they were about to run into strangers, she needed to be ready to fight. If they were about to run into Abby again, she was going to get her gun back. 

“I’ve, uh--It’s off-limits, right?” Joel said. Suspicious. Ellie took his response as evidence that she was right, Maria and Tommy just didn’t want young patrollers going there. That was annoying. She’d make sure to go back there sometime with her friends. There was probably cool shit there.

As they crept up the mountain, the wind picked up. Ellie’s teeth chattered. Her hoodie was frozen stiff, with her body heat doing little to thaw it. The wind battered the trees; they violently shook, some of them looking like they could topple at any moment. The world was pure white, from the ground to the sky. And then, a flash of red among the trees. As soon as she saw it, Ellie pulled her shotgun. Before it was off her shoulder, she heard the shrieking. Shrill and garbled, and so inhuman. And running towards them.

“Look out!” Ellie shouted. She squeezed her legs to grip the horse, and pointed her gun towards the Clicker to their right. One shot blew its head to bits, splattering the white ground with red and pink.

“Dammit, hold on,” Joel muttered. Joel kicked the horse, and it picked up speed. Ellie took one hand off the gun to grip his jacket and steady herself. She did not want to fall off another goddamn horse. Her tailbone still hurt.

“Ellie! Ahead!” Another Clicker, shrieking and bolting towards them. A gunshot, and a splattered head. And then the Runners appeared through the trees, yelling their ghoulish howls and charging with unreal speed. Joel sped the horse, and Ellie held on to him for dear life. 

“I’m out of bullets here!” Ellie shouted. A Runner charged towards the horse and grabbed at Ellie’s ankles, and she whacked it in the head with the butt of her shotgun.  _ What the  _ fuck  _ is with all the goddamn Infected today? _ Ellie was sick of it. 

“My shotgun’s loaded, can you reach it?” Joel shouted back. The gun was just tucked into his backpack, and Ellie struggled to grab it with one hand while her other clutched onto Joel for dear life. She grabbed it just in time to hit another Runner in the head with it, sending it stumbling just far enough behind the horse that she could shift her focus to the Runners charging for them head-on. It was very, very difficult to wield a shotgun one-handed, but Ellie couldn’t risk letting go of Joel with how fast the horse was running. Especially not with the wind and rough terrain. 

She tucked the end of the gun under her armpit and squeezed it tight to her body to steady it as best as she could. It would have to do. She aimed--sort of--at a Runner ahead, and managed to blow off a leg. Normally she would shoot it again to kill it, but at the moment she was content with its inability to chase after them. Another Runner quickly replaced it, and she shot it in the chest. It toppled, and the Runners behind it tripped over it, falling into a screaming, writhing pile of ripped clothes and yellow, rotting flesh. Ellie laughed. 

The horse leapt over a downed tree, which most of the remaining swarm of Runners fell over, only a few getting to their feet quickly enough to catch up with the horse. “Need more ammo,” Ellie said directly into Joel’s ear, ensuring he heard her over the rushing wind and howling Runners. He pulled a pistol from his pocket and held it behind him, not daring to look back lest any obstacles appear in front of them. Ellie wordlessly took the pistol, cocked it, and twisted her torso halfway around so that she could aim at the Infected running at them. The crowd was dwindling now. She only spotted three within a dangerous range, and easily dispatched them. 

They charged on. Joel had steered them a bit out of the way to avoid the Runners, but were now—allegedly—on a straight course towards the mansion. The hairs on the back of her neck had settled, but Ellie’s heart didn’t stop racing. She wondered how many Infected Tommy and whoever else had had to fight. How many bodies were buried under the snow they trudged over. She wondered if any of the bones cracking under their horse’s hooves belonged to Tommy.

Finally, ahead of them, Ellie saw a tall stone fence. Peaking above the fence was the back of a large house, surprisingly quite sturdy. The windows were boarded, and there were no lights inside. As they approached, Joel slowed the horse down. At the fence, they both hopped off the horse. 

Joel slung his bag off of his shoulder, and Ellie followed suit. “Whatcha got?” Joel asked, digging through his bag.

“Not shit,” Ellie huffed. “A knife, tape, stale cereal. No ammo.”

Joel swore under his breath. Ellie knew he’d been trying to stop swearing so much. Some of the parents of young children in Jackson complained about the heavy use of foul language by some of the adults around--Ellie knew she was included in this group--and Joel was one of the few who was trying to listen. Maria had torn into him and Tommy about it. As far as Ellie was concerned, it didn’t fucking matter. 

“Here, take that,” Joel said, handing over a few bullets. Ellie forgot to tell him about her gun. And about Abby’s piece of shit that sat at the bottom of Ellie’s backpack.

“I don’t have my .22,” Ellie said

“Why the hell don’t you have your gun?” Joel scolded. Annoying voice.

Ellie smirked. “Add it to the list of things we’ll talk about later.”  _ Salt Lake, immunity, Marlene, Abby and Nora, the gun. _ Ellie hoped he didn’t get too pissed about the gun. It was, technically, his gun in the first place, a consolation prize off his own hip to apologize for leaving her things in Salt Lake. Still, it had been hers ever since then, and after five years, Ellie figured he wasn’t allowed to claim ownership anymore. 

Joel rolled his eyes. “Here’s that, then,” he said, handing over a few shotgun shells. She was glad that Joel came well-stocked, at least. She wondered if he and Jesse had run into any Infected before finding Ellie and Dina. Neither looked too roughed up. It was possible they got lucky. 

Taking the ammunition from Joel, Ellie loaded two into her shotgun and stuffed the remainder in her pocket. Joel reloaded his shotgun and pistol, and slung his bag back over his shoulders. 

Ellie took a deep breath. Half her body hurt, and the other half was numb from the cold. A shotgun would be frustrating to use at short range, if they got into trouble inside the house. And she was sick of getting into trouble. She’d had enough trouble for the day. But if Tommy was in there, he might be in trouble. He might need help. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”

Joel knelt and laced his fingers, and Ellie stepped onto his hands. He boosted her over the high fence, and she clambered over the top. Behind her, Joel scrambled over the top, grunting loudly when he hit the ground, shaking the impact out of his legs. Keeping low, they crept across the backyard and towards the sliding glass door that led inside. Slowly, Joel reached for the door, and he looked surprised to see that it actually opened. 

As he slid open the door, Ellie raised her hand to the back of her neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wish we got more Ellie & Joel adventures in Part II. 
> 
> didn't read over the full thing before posting. errors likely. 
> 
> lots of this chapter is lifted from old fic. lots isn't. it's fine. 
> 
> live laugh love. girlboss. rock on.


	9. The Baldwin Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter!

_ Dead  _ was  Ellie’s first thought about the mansion. Big, ornate, and empty. She had fully expected to find people inside--who, exactly, she couldn’t say. Abby and Nora? Mystery stranger with the semi-auto? Tommy? All of the above?  _ Someone _ , at least. But as she and Joel crept through the kitchen, into an over-decorated living room, there was nothing and no one. No creaking floorboards overhead, no chittering Infected, no sounds of a scuffle. With the door shut, they couldn’t even hear the wind anymore. It was an eerie silence Ellie knew not to get comfortable in. Ellie determined quickly that there was nothing wrong with the foundation of the house--nothing worse than any of the other buildings she’d been in that day, anyway--and Maria and Tommy were full of shit. She’d make sure to let her friends know when she got back to town. 

The living room was crowded with overstuffed furniture and tacky taxidermied animals. A large recliner was in the corner, a spot of blood at the top, like a bloodied head had rested against it. The blood was still red, hadn’t dried and browned yet. The faintest remnant of a fire remained in the fireplace just beside the recliner--some barely-there embers dancing on the scorched logs, small strings of smoke still rising up the chimney. Ellie nodded towards the chair, and Joel raised his eyebrows. Someone had been there recently--a few hours ago, max. Maybe they never left. Joel put a finger to his lips, as if Ellie didn’t already know to be quiet.

A wide, curved staircase loomed across the living room. Joel slowly inched towards the staircase, Ellie close on his heels. It was a position they had assumed many times. Joel kept his eyes ahead, while Ellie made sure no one could attack from behind. They ascended the stairs, careful to step close to the wall so the boards didn’t squeak. As they rounded the curve in the stairs, Ellie lost sight of the bottom floor, and turned her head to check out the second floor. More garish decorations. A flattened bearskin hung on the furthest wall, grotesque and dirty. Ellie wondered if the people who used to live in the house had killed the bear themselves. She doubted it. Cowards. Ellie figured if you were going to display the carcass of a massive beast, you should at least have the balls to hunt it yourself. Anything else would just be pretentious.

At the head of the stairs was a wide foyer. More overstuffed furniture, a busted credenza, and an area rug that seemed to be faux fur. Large windows overlooked the white landscape. Ellie could see Joel’s horse in the distance, a dancing spec of black against the snow. It was getting dark outside. 

There were a few doors. Ellie figured these were bedrooms. Maybe one was a bathroom. Suddenly she had to pee. Inconvenient. She’d take care of it once they cleared the floor. Most of the doors were shut, save one. The furthest door was propped open. The door was large and oak, with an intricately carved metallic doorknob that was maybe rusty, or, fuck, shit, covered in blood. And the floor inside the doorway. Drops of blood trailing out towards the gaudy fur rug. And Ellie realized, in an instant, that they had left Joel’s horse around the other side of the house. Fuck fuck fuck. Someone was there. 

Ellie tapped Joel’s arm and gestured towards the blood. Joel nodded and approached the door, handgun drawn, footsteps silent. Ellie resumed watching their backs. She felt her heart thumping again. She was so tired. Too much bullshit for one day. She figured this was her karmic consequence for having slow patrols the past couple of weeks. 

She glimpsed movement out the window, but it was just the horse. Whose fucking horse was that? Why was it just wandering out there? The mansion had to have a garage or something that the horse would be more comfortable in. As her eyes followed the horse circling around in the snow, the horse shit on the ground. 

_ Fuck.  _ She’d spent most of her morning watching that horse shit.

With the hairs on the back of her neck standing ramrod straight, Ellie harshly whispered, “Joel!”

Joel did not immediately respond. Turning back around to check whether he’d heard her, Ellie saw Joel standing just inside the room with the bloody entryway, staring at a fixed spot on the ground, unmoving and expressionless, arms at his sides, still loosely holding his gun. 

“Joel,” Ellie said again, a bit louder, stepping towards him. Still no response. Just as Ellie’s foot crossed the doorway, Joel suddenly shocked back to life.

He quickly faced Ellie, wide-eyed but straight-faced. “Ellie, you can stay back,” he said. What the fuck did that mean? Ellie took another step through the doorway, and Joel held out his arm to stop her. “Ellie, get back. Just stay outta here,” he said more urgently.

“Joel, what the fuck?” Ellie said, annoyed, finally crossing into the room. Joel tried to push her back, but Ellie pushed back against him, fighting his grasp. Every time she was out with Joel, he tried to shield her from any bodies they came across, as though she hadn’t seen what felt like more corpses than living people in her lifetime. She was tired of Joel trying to shield death from her. She didn’t need it when she was fourteen, and she didn’t need it now. Ellie struggled against Joel, shoving him further into the room, and felt her feet slipping on the ground. Looking down, she saw her boots smudged with blood. 

“Ellie, stop!” Joel begged. Ellie ducked under his arm, and finally, she looked to where Joel had been staring. Just a body. Not the first, nor the goriest, she’d seen. Just a body. A body with a bruised and bloodied face, and a neat hole driven through its heart, laying in a pool of fresh blood. Just a body, wearing a cozy gray flannel shirt, saturated now with red, with dark blonde hair tied back in a short ponytail, a well-trimmed beard streaked with gray, a gold band around his left ring finger, wearing that stupid belt with the huge gold buckle that made him look like a cowboy, and a dogwhistle around his neck that Texas’s old ears couldn’t hear anymore.

“Ellie,” Joel said, much softer than he had been a moment ago, gently placing a hand on Ellie’s shoulder. “C’mon, we oughtta go find Jesse and Dina. We gotta get back to town.” His voice cracked. 

Ellie hardly heard him. She stood transfixed, eyes glued to the body. Tommy’s body. Maria was gonna be so mad. What the fuck were they gonna do? Tommy was supposed to clean Ellie’s gutters that weekend. And she was supposed to do dinner with Maria and him next week, and Texas was about to be a grandfather and Tommy was so excited for the new litter and already convinced Maria to take in one of the puppies. Fuck. Ellie's breaths were coming very fast. 

Joel’s hand squeezed her shoulder. “C’mon,” he said again. Ellie devoted a few more seconds to staring, then finally turned to leave--but not before she glimpsed a bit of metal on the floor by Tommy’s head, reflecting the faint sunlight streaming in through the window. A gun--a rubber grip .22 with a recently replaced trigger that  _ never _ jammed, quite unlike the piece of shit pistol sitting at the bottom of Ellie’s bag now. Goddammit. God fucking dammit. Ignoring Joel’s tugging on her arm, Ellie stepped around Tommy--the body that used to be Tommy--and picked up the gun. A short scratch in the metal along the barrel, and a tiny sunflower sticker on the bottom of the magazine that Dina stuck there years ago, back when they were both on group patrols. 

Joel said her name again. Ellie followed him out of the room, catching a glimpse of Dina’s horse out the window before reaching the stairs. Ellie sniffled. The horse shit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i was a kid my grandma was friends with this elderly couple who lived in this ugly house in the middle of nowhere with taxidermy animals and hunting memorabilia everywhere. they had this huge bearskin rug in the living room but neither of them had ever left illinois, where there are no bears. hated that place. hated that couple. anyways. thats my inspo for the baldwin place :)


	10. Mercy

Ellie didn’t want to be in the room when Maria found out about Tommy. Maybe that was shitty of her. Maybe she owed it to Maria to be there. Afterall, as Maria always told her, she considered Ellie family. So maybe it would only have been fair for Ellie and Joel both to be there, as Maria’s remaining family. As Tommy’s remaining family. But Ellie couldn’t do it. She couldn’t stand to think of Tommy, not without picturing him lying there in a pool of his own blood, with Ellie’s gun by his head. 

So while Joel went to the community center to find Maria, and Dina and Jesse put up the horses--four of them, including Japan, who Ellie had ridden back from the mansion, and Tommy’s horse, who Dina and Jesse had found pacing around an old ski lodge--Ellie headed back to her room, where she finally allowed the hot tears to flow. 

She slammed the door behind her, ripped her bag off her shoulders, and emptied it on the floor. Cereal flew across the floor, a roll of tape rolled under the bed, and then came her journal and Abby’s gun, clunking on the hardwood. She kicked away Abby’s gun, needing it to be far, far away from her, and snatched her journal off the floor. She grabbed a pen off her desk, sat cross-legged on her bed, and flipped open to the next empty page. She wiped the tears and running snot off her face, so that it didn’t muck up her journal, and amid the fogginess and confusion saturating her tired, sluggish brain, she made a list of the things she knew:

> _1\. Tommy is dead_
> 
> _2\. Abby was there_
> 
> _3\. Abby was looking for Joel_
> 
> _4\. Joel is lying about Salt Lake_

Was she certain about the last one? _Certain enough,_ she thought. And those four certainties led her to a conclusion she didn’t like:

> _5\. Tommy’s death is retribution for what Joel did in Salt Lake_

And so the question that consumed her brain, repeating itself over and over and over, so that it was the only thought she had, was _What the fuck did Joel do?_ She lay staring at the ceiling, letting the question eat at her. _What did he do? What did he do? What did he do?_

As her eyes drifted closed and her brain slowed down, the scarier question began to settle in: _Why did he do it?_

* * *

Ellie hadn’t spent much time around dogs before coming to Jackson. Occasionally, some strays would wander into the QZ in Boston, and some of the students at her military school would sneak the dogs scraps of food. Ellie tended to stay away. They’d all been warned a million times that the dogs were probably rabid, covered in bugs, and prone to aggression. Ellie didn’t feel very tempted to give away the little food she was afforded to an animal that could maim her. 

In Jackson, however, quite a few families had dogs. Some were for hunting, some helped out with the livestock on the farms a ways out from town, some were just for companionship. Maria and Tommy had Texas, the old mutt that followed at Maria’s heels, even though Tommy liked to call Texas _his_ dog. The older couple nextdoor, who moved back into town from their farmhouse after an accident rendered the husband’s knees no good for working in the fields anymore, brought their springy sheepdog, Peaches, with them. And about a year after Ellie and Joel had returned to Jackson, to their owners’ chagrin, Texas and Peaches welcomed a litter of new puppies to the community. 

Someone who _was_ excited, however, was Javi, the grandson of Peaches’ owners. He was just a few years younger than Ellie, and Ellie could not stand him. They often found themselves on farming rotation together, and while they picked blackberries or pulled carrots, Ellie would bite her tongue as Javi ranted on and on about the minerals in the soil, the family tree of mustard plants, and the history of barley farming in the Rocky Mountain region. Once Peaches’ pregnancy was discovered, canine gestation became the focus of his unsolicited, meandering lectures. He had, apparently, read every book about dogs he could find, and spoke with every resident of Jackson who had dealt with a pregnant dog before. Everytime Ellie was at Maria and Tommy’s for dinner or a chat, she saw Javi sitting on the porch next door with Peaches, rubbing her big tummy or feeding her better cuts of meat than Ellie figured a dog really needed.

And it was Javi who knocked frantically on Tommy’s front door one night while Ellie was over for what was supposed to be help replacing her pistol trigger, but turned into Tommy pestering her about why she was acting snotty with Joel that week. And when Tommy answered the door, Javi begged for Maria’s help with Peaches, who had gone into labor a few minutes earlier, and delivered a puppy who didn’t seem to be breathing. His grandparents, with impeccable timing, had gone out to the diner that evening, leaving Javi by himself to do his usual fawning over Peaches. Tommy explained that Maria--who had been there a decade prior when Texas was born, and thus apparently qualified as an expert on dog delivery--was across town dealing with an inventory dispute at the butcher’s, and Javi started to cry.

Ellie didn’t fucking like the kid, but she didn’t want to see him crying like that, so she was mostly relieved when Tommy offered to come over himself to help--though she was less relieved when he enlisted her to help as well.

So the three of them hurried next door and into the living room, where Peaches lay panting on the floor, with one very wiggly--and one very stationary--lumps of fur by her side. Tommy gently lifted the stationary pup, which looked like a solid black potato, to his ear, listening closely for a heartbeat. Javi crouched by Peaches’ hindlegs and helped with a third pup, toweling it off to get rid of the gross goop that covered it, and set it down next to its wiggly sibling. 

“I don’t understand why she’s not breathing,” Javi said, panicked, looking at the burnt potato Tommy cradled. “I--I’ve done everything I could! All the books said the mom should have a healthy diet while pregnant, and I gave her such good food, and I made sure she took it easy and got plenty of rest, and--and--” His words dissolved into sobs, and Tommy, likely taking pity on the poor boy, started a modified version of CPR on the potato, pressing its chest firmly with two fingers, breathing short puffs into its little toothless mouth. Peaches yelped, apparently about to expel another little creature. Ellie did not like to look. It looked gross. Feeling useless and a bit annoyed at being there, she focused on the two puppies wiggling near Peaches’ front legs. They were very small. Not much bigger than the burnt potato, but both mostly white in color--one had brown splotches on its head and hind legs, and the other had some black and brown fur on its ears. Javi placed a third pup with them--this one black and brown, like its father--and it wiggled in with its siblings. Javi sobbed.

“I didn’t--I don’t have any water! Peaches is gonna need water, and I didn’t get any water!”

Tommy shushed him. “Hey, bud, it’ll be okay. Go ‘n’ get some water from the well, Ellie’ll keep watch for more pups.” Tommy nodded at Ellie, who tried to hide a grimace. Javi jumped to his feet and ran out to the back door, Tommy continued his seemingly fruitless chest compressions on the burnt potato, and Ellie begrudgingly knelt by Peaches’ haunches, hoping against hope that she was tapped out. 

Unsurprisingly, that hope was useless. Peaches whimpered, and Ellie winced while she watched another pup enter the world. Ellie wasn’t sure what to do then. She picked it up, examined it--solid black, like the burnt potato--but it didn’t wiggle like the others had in Javi’s hands. She felt it take in shallow, quick breaths, and panicked for a second, thinking maybe she broke it.

“Uh, Tommy, is this one okay?” she asked, holding the goop-covered lump out to him. Tommy set the burnt potato on the other side of Peaches from the wiggly pups, having stopped his compressions when Javi left the room. Tommy wrapped the lump in a towel and held it to his ear, his face wrought with concern, and shrugged.

“Seems just fine to me. Heartbeat’s strong, that’s for sure,” Tommy said. He wiped the goop off the pup, and before he tossed the towel away, Javi hurried back into the room, carrying a bucket half-full of water and a shallow bowl. Upon seeing the pup in Tommy’s hand, slowly beginning to wiggle, his face lit up, and suddenly he was crying again.

“You fixed her! I can’t believe you fixed her!” he shouted, dropping the bucket and the bowl and shuffling towards Tommy. Ellie saw the panic in Tommy’s eyes, and prepared herself for the wailing Javi was about to engage in when Tommy told him what had actually happened. But instead, Tommy subtly dropped the goopy towel over the still-stationary burnt potato on the other side of Peaches, and held the new pup out to Javi.

Tommy smiled, flashing Ellie a stern look while Javi’s eyes fixated on the pup, commanding her to say nothing. “She’s a strong one,” Tommy said as Javi gently cradled the pup. “Though--think it might be a ‘he,’” Tommy added when he got a look at the pup’s underbelly. Javi shrugged, hugged the pup to his chest, set it down with the other three living pups, and settled back by Peaches’ hind legs, waiting to see if any more puppies were on the way. 

Ellie and Tommy waited with Javi for a while in case more puppies came and needed Tommy’s “assistance,” but after a while, Peaches seemed to have fallen asleep, and the four wigglers lazily nursed. 

Javi quietly but exuberantly thanked Tommy again and again, and then went to grab the goop-soaked towels laying around Peaches. Before Javi could grab the towel that covered the poor little burnt potato, Tommy grabbed the kids wrist, gently took the towels in his hands, and carefully, subtly scooped the potato in its towel.

“We’ll take the towels out to wash, no worries. You stay here and keep an eye on Peaches, yeah?” Tommy said, and Javi seemed quite happy with that. He waved them goodbye and sat cross-legged on the ground by Peaches and her puppies. 

Ellie followed Tommy back to his house next door and into the back yard, where he tossed the towels in a basket and tenderly set the burnt potato on the ground. He washed his hands in a bucket of rainwater on the porch, and rubbed his forehead. He looked like Joel when he did that, and the image shot a quick burst of annoyance down Ellie’s spine, remembering why she was pissed at Joel. He didn’t want her tampering with her own gun, tried to make her let him take care of it when she told him the trigger was getting a little sticky. He said there was too much that could go wrong, and installing the new trigger wrong could make the gun backfire when she tried to use it--like she didn’t know that, and like she wouldn’t be exceedingly careful with it, if he would just tell her how to do it.

Tommy sighed and grabbed a shovel from the shed. A few feet from his and Maria’s herb garden, he started to dig a small hole.

“You could have told him, you know,” Ellie said. “He’s old enough to know shit dies.”

Tommy rolled his shoulders and kept digging. “I know that. Hell, kid lost his parents at eight years old, he can handle a stillborn puppy.”

“So why’d you hide it from him?” Ellie asked. 

“I don’t know,” Tommy said, tossing the shovel aside. “What good would the truth have done him? He’d’ve just felt like shit about it.”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “He would’ve gotten over it. You didn’t need to lie to him.”

Tommy shrugged. “Sometimes a lie is just...I don’t know, easier. Merciful.” Tommy carefully picked up the burnt potato and placed it in its shallow grave, and while he covered it over with dirt, Ellie considered whether it was really a mercy to lie to someone to hide the reality of how the world works. _It’s not mercy_ , she decided. _It’s prolonging the inevitable_. Because eventually, they’ll learn the reality anyways, and it may just be a harsher lesson next time. 

* * *

Ellie was awoken for the second time that day by rough knocking on her door. She didn’t know what time it was. The high window across from her bed showed that it was still dark out. She waited for the knocking to stop.

It did not. “Go away,” Ellie shouted. She wasn’t in the mood for conversation or commiseration. She only had the energy to sleep or brood. 

“I just need a second,” came the reply from the other side of the door. 

_Are you fucking kidding me?_ Ellie begrudgingly got out of bed, wincing as her bare feet hit the cold hardwood. She angrily opened the door, and, hoping he couldn’t tell she had just woken up, asked, “What do you want, Joel?”

Joel stood with his hands stuffed in his pockets, eyes glued to the floor. “I talked to Maria,” he said. “A few people went out to get--they brought--uh, they went back to the Baldwin place.” Joel sighed. “It’s supposed to be a little warmer in a couple days, so we’re hopin’ to--we’re gonna try to have the, uh, funeral day after tomorrow.” Soon. That was really soon. “Early afternoon. Just thought you’d wanna know.”

Ellie nodded. She wondered what he’d said to Maria. Did he keep it simple? _Tommy died on patrol_. Did he tell Maria about the strangers? Did he tell Maria that the strangers were looking for Joel? Did Maria know what happened in Salt Lake?

“Those girls me and Dina ran into shot him, Joel,” Ellie said curtly. They hadn’t talked about it on the way back to town. They’d ridden in silence. “They had my gun. They shot him.”

Joel didn’t say anything. Scratched his forehead, then stuffed his hand back in his pocket.

“They were looking for you,” Ellie said. “Why were they looking for you?” There was no anger in her voice this time. She was too tired for anger. Her short sleep earlier didn’t help at all. She just felt more tired. Distantly sad. 

Joel shook his head. “Ellie, don’t.”

“They shot Tommy, and they were looking for you. What does that sound like to you?”

“Talkin’ like that ain’t gonna solve anything, Ellie,” Joel said.

“It sounds like they were planning to kill you instead. Why would they do that, Joel? Why would they want to kill you?”

Joel’s hands left his pockets and landed on his hips. “I’m not talkin’ about this right now--”

“What did you do to them, Joel? What did you do?” Ellie felt the tears leaking into her voice. She wasn’t going to cry. She wouldn’t do it. She wasn’t sure if she’d even drunk enough water for the day to produce tears now. “What happened at the hospital?”

Finally Joel looked up from the floor. He still didn’t meet her eyes, which Ellie was grateful for. But he didn’t say anything.

“Tell me the fucking truth, Joel, or I’ll go find it myself.” Ellie didn’t know exactly how she’d do that. She’d go back to the hospital in Salt Lake. She’d figure out what the fuck WLF stood for, and she’d track them down. She’d figure it out. She needed to know.

It was silent for a moment, and Ellie prepared to shut the door on Joel if it was silent any longer, until finally he spoke. “I had to get you out of there, so I did.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“It wasn’t safe--”

“Why not? What wasn’t safe? It was the fucking Firelfies, Joel! It was Marlene!”

“And they were gonna kill you, goddammit!” Joel shouted.

Ellie shook her head. “What are you talking about?” she scoffed. She knew the Fireflies, and she knew Marlene. Marlene wouldn’t let anything happen to Ellie. She promised Ellie’s mother. Ellie knew that. 

Joel rubbed his forehead with his hand. “The cordyceps--the infection--it was--hell, I didn’t understand the shit they were talkin’ about,” Joel muttered. “It--the doctors were--goddammit, Ellie--”

“What happened, Joel?” she asked again.

Joel squeezed his eyes shut and sighed, and finally, he met Ellie’s eyes. Ellie really wished he hadn’t. She saw how tired he was. She saw the sadness. She watched his lip quiver as he tried to speak.

“Just say it,” Ellie practically whispered. Practically begged.

His hands hung at his sides, and his gaze returned to the floor, and slowly, so that Ellie could barely hear him, he said, “Making a vaccine...would have killed you.” Ellie wasn’t sure she heard him right, but he didn’t repeat it. 

As his answer set in, Ellie felt herself beginning to shake as she processed what that had to mean. She clenched her jaw so her teeth wouldn’t chatter, and for a moment thought she might grind her teeth to stubs on the spot with how hard she was biting down. She released her jaw with a sigh.

She had to hear him say it. 

“What did you do?”

Joel’s eyes closed again. “I stopped them.”

Ellie didn’t have to infer what that meant. Her belongings abandoned, the Fireflies disbanding, the women looking for Joel--all of it inferred the meaning of his words for her. 

Her whole body was shaking. She couldn’t control it. She wasn’t sure if Joel could tell. She didn’t care. She didn’t care she didn’t fucking care what he saw. She clenched her fists and tensed her body, and looked Joel in his weary face. He looked so old, and so sad, and so fucking stupid. Before Ellie slammed the door, she felt the anger seep back into her voice, and she spat her words like daggers. “ _You_ killed Tommy,” she said, and hoped Joel knew how strongly she meant it. “Don’t come back here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't know how the fuck dog birth works


	11. Decisions

Ellie laid back down, but couldn’t fall back asleep, which pissed her off deeply, because she had no desire, at the moment, to be awake. Too much to think about. Too many grim visions playing on a loop in her head. She couldn’t stop picturing Joel at the hospital in Salt Lake, hunting down the operating room the doctors had set Ellie up in, massacring the Fireflies before he stole Ellie away and ran. Because that’s what it had to have been, for Abby and Nora and god knows who else to have tracked Joel down and come to Jackson to kill him. It had to have been a massacre. Gruesome and brutal, as Ellie knew Joel was fully capable of being. She’d seen him slaughter rooms full of soldiers, hunters, or Infected, seen him pulverize men with his bare hands, or a baseball bat, or a rogue piece of pipe he’d found laying about. She’d seen how vicious Joel could. She knew he would do anything to survive. He’d do anything to protect Ellie.

There was a time when Ellie relished that. It had felt so good when she understood the lengths Joel would go to for her--not out of obligation to Marlene or Tess, but solely out of care for Ellie. Solely because he couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to her. She’d never had that before. She never had parents. The FEDRA fucks she grew up around weren’t especially warm or caring. Riley had cared about her, she knew that, but Riley was barely older than Ellie was. And Riley was gone. So when Joel showed up and started watching out for her, and later, when Joel made it clear that Ellie was a priority-- _ the _ priority--she’d felt cared for in a wholly unfamiliar way.

But she found there was a line between caring and caring  _ too much _ , and it just became overbearing. He wouldn’t let Ellie tinker with her own gun, he was so nosy about her personal life, he micromanaged her patrol routes. Like she was a fucking child. She had managed just fine before Joel ever even knew she existed, and she could handle things on her own without him sticking his head into it and trying to “protect” her. She could protect herself just fine when she needed to, and if she fucked it up, that was her mistake to make. 

Joel did not get to make decisions for her. He didn’t get to choose which patrol routes were too dangerous for Ellie to run. He didn’t get to decide what she could and couldn’t do. They weren’t his choices to make. 

He didn’t get to decide to destroy any hopes of making a vaccine. He didn’t get to decide to condemn the world to the cordyceps forever. He didn’t get to decide there would be no cure. He didn’t get to decide that there would be no saving the human race. 

It wasn’t up to Joel. Joel wasn’t the one with the bitemark. He wasn’t the one with the Infection in his bloodstream or the cordyceps in his brain. Joel wasn’t the key to the cure. Joel was not the one whose life could be exchanged for salvation.

That was Ellie. It was Ellie’s decision. It was Ellie’s immunity. It was Ellie’s life. 

Ellie didn’t need Joel’s protection. It was her turn to make the decisions. 

* * *

There were a few very long days of her life when Ellie thought she was going to have to kill herself. Riley had said they could lose their minds together, after getting bitten. They would fight it as long as they could, and then when they had to, they would succumb to the Infection, let it take over. She called it poetic. Ellie wanted to go along with this. She wanted to spend her final hours with Riley as they simultaneously lost themselves. But she knew she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t become one of them—one of those things. She couldn’t let herself lose control like that, she couldn’t risk letting the Infection take over her body with her own consciousness dead. She couldn’t fathom the even darker alternative—that her consciousness may live on, inside her body, with the Infection in the driver’s seat. She couldn’t do it. She knew that at the first sign of the Infection taking over, she’d have to end it. And she planned to. 

Riley turned. It didn’t take very long. A few hours at most. Ellie heard it happening. She heard the panicked sounds that only a Runner could make, except this time, it was Riley’s voice making them. The haunted groaning, the forceful grunts; it sounded like the human arguing against itself. As Ellie listened to Riley transforming, she found it impossible not to think of what was happening inside Riley’s brain, and what was surely about to happen inside her own. The pained breathing, the mindless stumbling—Ellie had to imagine that this was a person’s remaining humanity instinctively trying to fight off the inevitable: The hunger for blood, the need to kill. 

Was it painful? Could they feel the cordyceps growing into their brains? Could they feel the fungus invading every part of their body? Growing through their skin? Covering their faces? Did some part of them know what was happening? Was there any human left in there?

Ellie wondered what Riley’s last coherent thought was. Was she scared? Riley was never scared. Was she angry? Riley was always angry. Was she thinking about Ellie? Was she thinking about eating her? Was she wondering why Ellie wasn’t turning yet?

Ellie thought about shooting Riley. She knew it wasn’t what Riley wanted, but maybe what Riley wanted was selfish. Every additional Infected increases the chance of someone else getting killed or bitten. Did Riley really want to be responsible for that? 

She couldn’t do it though. She couldn’t kill Riley. She was pissed at herself. She was even more pissed when she walked away from Riley—slowly and quietly, so as not to alert her, or whatever she had become. She couldn’t fucking listen to it anymore. She couldn’t bear to look. So she wandered, and wandered, and wandered, waiting to turn. She held Riley’s gun in her hand as she meandered around Boston. There were a few times when she thought,  _ Why am I doing this? What am I waiting for? I should just end it now _ . But she couldn’t. She would put the gun against her head, but she couldn’t pull the trigger. 

So she waited, and waited, and waited. Two days. Everyone turns within two days. Smaller people usually turn quicker. And then two days passed, and then three, and then four. Nothing. A headache, sharp pain on her arm where she’d been bitten, and some standard hunger pangs, but her mind was intact. She didn’t crave human flesh. She was fine. What the fuck. 

She wandered, and wandered, and wandered. She found the Firefly base. She pulled her sleeve over the bitemark while the guards led her to Marlene. Marlene cried. Ellie cried. Marlene called it a miracle. She mentioned a hospital. She mentioned a cure.

And then Ellie met Joel, and they set off for the hospital in Salt Lake City, and every day, until they left the hospital, and Joel told her there were others like her—others who were immune—every single fucking day, as she laid down to sleep, she was terrified that she’d wake up without control over her body, knowing that the fungus had taken over and her body was out for flesh, and when she’d try to speak to warn others, to tell them she was still there, the only sound she’d make was a low, tortured groan. 

* * *

Ellie was in and out of sleep. She was so tired, but every time she fell asleep, she dreamt of Tommy with a hole in his chest, staring lifelessly at Ellie standing over him with her gun in her hands. She’d wake with a start at the sight of him, and feel her eyes drifting to her gun on the table by her front door. The gun Joel gave her on the way to Jackson from Salt Lake. It was the gun that killed Tommy and oh fuck, oh god, it must have been the gun Joel used in the hospital. It must have been the gun that killed the doctors and the Fireflies and Marlene. All of them dead thanks to the low-powered .22 with its little sunflower sticker that sat on her entry table. All of them dead because Joel decided Ellie was more important. 

She thought of all of the people who were gone because of the Infection. Riley, Tess, Sam. A few folks from Jackson who’d gotten swarmed on patrols. Dozens of people whose last desperate letters to loved ones she’d found laying around old houses she raided for supplies. Millions of people worldwide. More every day. The Infection threatened everyone, every time they left their homes. Everyone except Ellie. Ellie had been bitten, and she survived. And she had survived the journey from Massachusetts to Utah, and, thanks to Joel, she had survived the Fireflies in Salt Lake. And thanks to her survival, millions more were slated to die thanks to the Infection.

Ellie felt tears stinging her eyes and tried to blot them away with her sleeves, but they kept boiling back up and spilling down the sides of her face, wetting her hair splayed out beneath her head. Her cheeks felt hot and she knew that a sob was sitting at the back of her throat, waiting for Ellie to take a deep breath so it could escape, and inevitably bring about an endless well of sobs, until Ellie’s chest hurt and her throat was raw. Ellie wouldn’t give in. She would let the tears fall, but she knew that if she let the sobbing start, it would never end. 

As she stared at the ceiling, there was a knock at the door, and Ellie jumped out of bed and stomped to the front door.  _ The fucking audacity _ . He was always like this. Ellie would tell him she didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to talk to him, wanted him to stay the fuck away from her, and ten minutes later, Joel would show up at her door asking if she needed him to return the DVD she’d left at his place the previous weekend, or if it was okay for him to go to dinner at Tommy and Maria’s later that week even though Ellie would be there. He always had to have the last word. Ellie was fucking tired of it. She picked up her .22 from the table, and as she swung open the door with her gun in hand, ready to face Joel, she growled, “If you come back here again, I will shoot your fucking kneecap.”

There was a pause from the darkness, and then, “Was the sex that bad?”

Ellie blinked. “Dina.”  _ Shit _ .

“The couch was all narrow, and I was pretty high, and--”

“Hey, no,” Ellie interrupted. She had all but forgotten everything that happened with Dina. She was almost amazed that 24 hours ago, a kiss with Dina was poised to cause her weeks worth of anxiety, and now her panic over engaging in much more than a kiss with the actual girl of her dreams--one of her closest confidants--her best friend’s ex-girlfriend--was the last thing on her mind. “No, it--it was--”

“At least a six?” Dina stepped just a bit into the light coming from Ellie’s room, and Ellie could see that she was blushing from the cold. Ellie took a step back from the door and waved Dina in, shutting the door behind her.

Ellie didn’t quite have the energy to laugh, but she mustered a half smile. “Definitely. Yes.”

Dina nodded, and returned the soft smile. “I wasn’t sure if you still wanted to, uh, hang out,” she said, sticking her thumbs through her belt loops. “I just wanted to check in.” Typical Dina. She rarely let Ellie wallow or brood without at least offering to talk about it. It never made sense to Ellie, how readily Dina would just talk about her problems and fears and complaints. She said it felt cathartic. Ellie thought it felt suffocating to talk about traumas and losses so openly and unabashedly. It just forced her to feel sad. 

“I’m okay,” Ellie assured her. It wasn’t quite the truth, but Ellie hoped Dina wouldn’t notice. Or if she did, she’d take the hint.

“Right.” Dina kicked her feet.  _ She got the hint. _ “Has anyone told you the funeral plan?”  _ Kind of. _

Ellie took a deep breath. She hated funerals. She wasn’t sure if she really wanted to go to Tommy’s. “Thursday afternoon, right?” Dina nodded.

“Supposed to be warmest around two, so probably then.” Ellie didn’t know how they predicted the weather like that. She knew it had something to do with some old machine Eugene brought back to life a few years back, but didn’t understand the mechanics. It would probably be worth learning, she thought. “Think you’ll go?”

Ellie shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Dina nodded, and Ellie watched her eyes travel around the room. It had been a while since Dina spent much time at Ellie’s place. They didn’t hang out there often. It was smaller than Dina’s and Jesse’s places, and there wasn’t much seating. Not a lot to do. Just Ellie’s desk against the back wall, a bookcase stuffed with comics, DVDs, CDs, and VHS tapes, plus some old, filled up sketchbooks and journals Ellie hadn’t looked through in ages. She had some posters and artwork hung up on the wall, crooked on the wall behind her desk, where Jesse helped her hang them, and straight on the other walls, which Dina supervised. Her guitar rested against the desk, and with a blush she hoped wasn’t too obvious, Ellie remembered Dina’s earlier request for Ellie to perform one of the songs she wrote. Aside from the small bathroom attached in the corner, the only other thing of note was the twin bed against the wall, which Ellie refused to think about while Dina stood in front of her. 

Dina glanced from poster to poster, to the guitar across the room, to the unmade bed, and finally, to the gun still in Ellie’s hand. Her brows furrowed. “When did you get your gun back?” 

Ellie set the gun back on the table by the door.  _ Shit _ . She gulped. “They shot Tommy.” 

“Shit,” Dina cursed. “I meant to tell you--god, fuck those fucking girls--”

“Meant to tell me what?”

Dina pinched the bridge of her nose. “I mentioned running into those two to Evan when I handed in my shotgun.” Ellie hated Evan. He was a FEDRA deserter who now oversaw munitions for Jackson. Ellie didn’t trust him. He still talked like the FEDRA assholes she grew up around, stiff and rude. “I mentioned the WLF patches. He recognized the name.”

_ Oh shit _ . “Are they from Wyoming?”

Dina shook her head. “Washington Liberation Front. Evan said last he heard, they were stationed in Seattle, but that was years ago. He didn’t know why they’d be all the way down here. As far as he knew, they were living large in Seattle. Fucked up FEDRA pretty bad up there.”

“Well, we know what they were doing down here,” Ellie said. Dina crossed her arms over her chest, gazing at the floor.

“They were looking for Joel,” Dina said. “They were trying to kill him, weren’t they? Instead of Tommy?”

Ellie nodded, feeling her body begin to shake again in the same way it had when she yelled at Joel earlier. Her blood was boiling, and she felt the heat climbing up her arms and neck. She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw as her vision started to cloud with red, as her hands wound tight enough into fists that she could feel her nails beginning to bite through skin, and she wasn’t sure if this was her body preparing itself to scream or to cry, but through the cloud of rage, Ellie felt a soft touch on her shoulder, and then her back, and then across her whole body as she was pulled into a tight hug.

Dina held her tightly, muttering into her shoulder while Ellie willed her anger to subside, if just for a moment, but couldn’t seem to unclench her fists or relax her tensed shoulders. “It’s okay,” Dina muttered. It wasn’t, really. “It’ll be okay.” How could she promise that? Tommy was dead and it was Joel’s fault and it was Ellie’s fault. There was no cure and it was Joel’s fault but it was Ellie’s fault. There would be no cure and it was Ellie’s fault. It was Ellie’s fault. Tommy and Marlene and Sam and Henry and Tess and Riley were dead and it was Ellie’s fault. The Fireflies were dead and it was Ellie’s fault. No vaccine no cure no salvation and it was Ellie Ellie Ellie. She realized at once that her body was preparing to scream  _ and _ cry and needed desperately to be away from Dina, but with each defiant push to get out of Dina’s grasp, Dina squeezed her tighter, pressed her head harder into Ellie’s chest, and Ellie felt her chest constricting and her lungs collapsing, but still, Dina pressed her hand flat against Ellie’s back and slowly rubbed up and down, and Ellie tried to focus on that instead of the blood trailing across her knuckles. “Ellie, it’s okay,” Dina said again, pressing a kiss to Ellie’s shoulder, and Ellie found that if she breathed deep enough, she was able to relax her shoulders. Dina continued pressing light kisses to Ellie’s shoulder, her neck, her cheek, interrupting herself with soft whispers of Ellie’s name and assurances that everything would be okay. Ellie breathed as deeply as she could, focused on Dina’s gentle hand on her back and her soft, calm voice, and as soon as she was able to unclench her fists, she wrapped her arms around Dina and buried her face in the crook of her neck, which was difficult with how much taller Ellie was than Dina, but Ellie could ignore the strain of her neck if it meant she got to hide her face in the warmth of Dina’s shoulder, feeling the baby hairs loose from her messy bun tickle at her ear. Ellie pulled Dina as close as she could, and prayed to whomever would listen that her hot tears would stop leaking down her face before Dina made her let go. 

* * *

Ellie woke up what felt like days later, but looking out the high windows of her bedroom, she figured it must have only been a few hours since she fell asleep. It was barely light out, like she had just missed the sunrise. The room was cold, but Ellie felt warmer than she could ever remember being with Dina’s body curled tightly against her, sleeping soundly. For a moment, Ellie lay still, with her arm wrapped around Dina, briefly wishing that they could stay there forever. But they could not, and Ellie knew that. As slowly and quietly as possible, Ellie removed her arm, and stood up from the bed, careful not to step on Dina’s coat or boots that had been discarded at the side of the bed. 

She dug around in her messy dresser drawers for a change of clothes, and settled on getting dressed in the simplicity of a different combination of jeans, undershirt, and sweatshirt than the one she’d been wearing for two days. Still doing her best not to make a sound, Ellie grabbed her backpack from its crumpled spot on the floor, and carefully packed it full.

An extra t-shirt. Two pairs of socks. All the clean underwear she had. 

A water flask. A pack of chewsticks. Both bags of beef jerky from her desk drawer. 

Her journal. Two pens.

She stuffed her knife into her pocket, affixed her gun holster around her hips, and slid her gun into it. Before slipping her backpack over her shoulders, she fumbled her hand under her dresser until she felt cold metal. She withdrew her hand, and stuffed Abby’s broken gun down to the bottom of her bag. 

She would return the favor, and give Abby’s gun back to her. 

Dina was right. Everything would be okay. Because Joel didn’t get to have the last word. Joel didn’t get to make all the decisions to protect her. It wasn’t Joel’s choice to let the rest of the world suffer so Ellie could live.

The choice was Ellie’s now. And she’d make the right one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's my fic and i get to write the 400-word full-page paragraphs
> 
> i'll be updating the fic summary soon, just so you all know and aren't confused when you see it. 
> 
> anyways! thoughts comments questions concerns. please don't hesitate to hurl words at me.


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